By  George  Haven  Putnam 


A  Memoir  of  George  Palmer  Putnam 

A  Prisoner  of  War  in  Virginia  (1864-5) 

Abraham  Lincoln 

The  Censorship  of  the  Church  of  Rome 

Books  and  Their  Makers  during  the  Middle  Ages 

Authors  and  Their  Public  in  Ancient  Times 

The  Question  of  Copyright 

The  Little  Gingerbread  Man 

The  Artificial  Mother 

Authors  and  Publishers 

Memories  of  My  Youth 

Memories  of  a  Publisher 


Memories  of  a  Publisher 


1865-1915 


By 
George  Haven  Putnam,  LittD. 

Late  Brevet  Major,   176th  Regt.,  N.  Y.  S.  Vols. 

Author  of  "  Memoir  of  G.  P.  Putnam,"  "  Memories  of  My  Youth, 
"  Life  of  Lincoln,"  "  Books  and  Their  Makers,"  etc. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

Cbe   fmfcfcerbocfcer  pre0s 

1915 


COPYRIGHT,  1915 

BY 
GEORGE  HAVEN  PUTNAM 


Cbc  tmfckerbocfccr  press,  flew  Bortt 


Co 
E.  J.  P. 

IN  MEMORY  OF  YEARS  OF 

SYMPATHETIC  AND  VITALIZING  COMPANIONSHIP, 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  DEDICATED  BY 

THE  AUTHOR 


i\ 


INTRODUCTION 

IN  1912  I  brought  into  publication  a  Memoir  of  George 
P.  Putnam,  in  which,  in  addition  to  an  estimate  of 
the  character  and  services  of  my  father,  I  gave  an  account 
of  the  publishing  firm  founded  by  him,  the  record  closing 
with  1872,  the  year  of  his  death. 

In  1914,  I  published  a  volume,  prepared  chiefly  for 
the  information  of  my  children  and  grandchildren,  entitled 
Memories  of  My  Youth.  In  this  I  narrated  what  I  could 
remember  of  school  days,  of  my  experiences  in  French  and 
German  universities,  and  of  the  years  of  my  service  in 
the  Civil  War — a  service  which  terminated  in  1865,  when 
with  my  twenty-first  year,  I  attained  citizenship. 

The  present  volume  continues  the  account  of  the  Put- 
nam publishing  concern  from  1872;  I  have,  however,  not 
attempted  any  detailed  record,  for  which  there  was,  in 
fact,  no  adequate  material.  It  seemed  sufficient  to  make 
reference  only  to  certain  of  the  more  distinctive  of  the 
publishing  undertakings  and  to  a  few  of  the  long  list  of 
authors  with  whom  our  personal  relations  have  been 
important  or  interesting. 

The  book  continues  also,  from  1865  to  1915,  the 
account  of  my  personal  undertakings  and  interests. 
I  have  not  attempt^  to  present  a  consecutive  or  com- 
plete narrative,  for  'iich,  as  my  years  have  been  too 
crowded  to  leave  time  jfor  the  keeping  of  a  diary,  I  had 


vi  Introduction 

no  data  within  reach.  I  have  jotted  down  what  I  could 
remember  of  certain  people,  some  of  them  decidedly 
interesting  people,  with  whom,  during  the  past  half 
century,  I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  coming  into  rela- 
tions, in  connection  either  with  business  or  with  public 
work,  or  in  social  channels.  The  list  of  persons  referred 
to  fails  to  include  not  a  few  of  my  most  valued  friends. 
This  is  not  because  their  companionship  and  sympathy 
have  not  constituted  a  most  potent  factor  in  my  life,  but 
because  such  personal  relations  did  not  seem  to  be  prop- 
erly a  matter  of  public  concern  or  likely  to  prove  of 
interest  to  the  reader. 

To  these  memories  of  people,  I  have  added  references 
to  certain  events  which,  during  the  past  fifty  years,  had 
served  to  make  current  history;  and  I  have  thought  it 
worth  while  to  place  on  record  my  opinions  or  conclusions 
on  some  of  the  questions  of  the  day  which  had,  during 
the  past  fifty  years,  been  active  issues  before  the  com- 
munity. 

I  may  admit  that  my  views  on  such  matters  as  honest 
money,  civil  service  reform,  municipal  administration, 
copyright,  etc.,  possess  no  importance  over  those  of 
any  other  average  citizen  of  my  time;  but  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  a  faithful  record  of  the  experience  of  one 
generation  in  the  management  of  its  problems  should 
prove  of  interest  and  service  to  the  men  of  the  next  gen- 
eration in  their  struggle  for  the  solution  of  more  or  less 
similar  perplexities. 

The  sons  ought  to  have  the  service  of  the  experience 
of  their  fathers,  whether  this  experience  stands  for  failure 
or  for  success.  Each  man  is  in  a  position  to  pass  on  some- 
thing to  his  fellows  and  to  those  ttut  are  to  follow  him. 
The  genius  can  hand  dowi.  ._~  _  achings  of  his  inspira- 
tion, which  have  value  for  thousands,  but  even  the 
ordinary  man  who  tells  simply  how  he  has  lived  his  life 


Introduction  vii 

has  something  to  give  that  can  be  made  to  help  the  lives 
of  others. 

It  is  with  such  a  belief  and  with  such  a  hope  that  I  have 
put  together  this  volume  of  Memories  of  later  life. 

Since  the  war,  the  author  (it  would  not  be  correct  to 
say  the  writer)  has  not  had  the  use  of  a  writing  arm, 
while  he  has  also  been  hampered  with  restricted  eyesight. 
The  preparation  of  this  volume  would,  therefore,  have 
been  impossible  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  sympathetic 
and  intelligent  co-operation  of  his  two  secretaries,  his 
daughter  Ethel,  and  Miss  Charlotte  M.  Zamow,  for 
whose  invaluable  service  he  now  makes  grateful  acknow- 
ledgments. 

The  year  in  which  this  volume  is  completed  is  one  of 
sadness  and  apprehension  for  Europe  and  for  the  whole 
civilized  world. 

I  find  myself  in  accord  with  those  who  are  working  for 
such  an  association  of  the  states  of  the  world  as  shall  bring 
about  a  permanent  policy  of  peace.  These  men  are  hoping 
that  the  prese'nt  war  will  result  in  the  crushing  of  the 
Hohenzollern  dream  of  imperial  domination  and  will 
bring  to  an  end  tlie  attempt  to  control  the  people  of 
Europe  by  the  Prussian  policy  of  militarism.  They  see 
no  other  way  in  which  can  be  realized  the  dream  of  a 
great  federation  of  states  the  relations  of  which  shall  be 
directed  by  an  international  court.  The  decisions  of  such 
a  court,  enforced  by  an  adequate  world's  police,  naval 
and  military,  should  ensure  the  enforcement  of  justice  and 
the  maintenance  of  peace  throughout  the  United  States 
of  the  World  just  as  today  the  decisions  of 'our  own 
Supreme  Court,  enforced  by  the  authority  of  t^ie  nation, 
secure  justice  and  maintain  peace  throughout  ( he  United 
States  of  America.  J 

The  year  has  brought  to  myself  a  sbp^p  reminder  of 
certain  physical  limitations  that  rr  «  iC/be  looked  for  in 


} 


viii  Introduction 

the  eighth  decade  of  one's  life,  and  it  was  mainly  due  to 
this  reminder  that  I  thought  it  desirable  to  bring  to  com- 
pletion this  volume  of  reminiscences,  the  several  chapters 
of  which  had  been  in  train  during  a  series  of  years. 

In  spite  of  not  a  few  disappointments  and  the  failure 
to  accomplish  a  number  of  things  aimed  for  and  worked 
for,  and  the  imperfections  of  the  things  that  have  been 
accomplished,  the  years  have  brought  to  me  a  fair  share 
of  happiness. 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  one  of  the  saddest  of  pos- 
sibilities that  a  man  might  during  the  period  of  his  later 
years  be  left  alone, — as  Goldsmith  puts  it : 

Remote,  unfriended,  melancholy,  slow. 

Against  such  a  misfortune,  I  have  found  myself  for- 
tunately insured,  as  well  in  the  possession  of  a  loyal  home 
circle  as  in  relations  of  friendship. 

The  business  of  the  publishing  House,  which  consti- 
tutes a  monument  to  the  memory  of  its  founder,  is  being 
conducted  by  an  adequate  group  of  his  sons  and  grand- 
sons, and  whatever  there  may  be  of  my  own  individuality 
that  is  worthy  of  preservation  may  be  safely  confided  to 
the  memories  of  the  wife,  the  daughters,  and  the  son. 

In  passing  over  to  the  public — or  rather  to  such  small 
portion  of  the  public  as  is  likely  to  be  interested — this 
record  of  an  active  life,  I  may  express  the  hope  that  I 
have  utilized  to  the  best  of  my  ability  the  opportunities 
that  have  come  to  me  and  the  belief  that  I  have  received 
in  retiitr/all  that  I  was  entitled  to. 

G.  H.  P. 

NEW  YDRK,  August,  1915. 


I 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER 

I. — NEW  YORK  IN  THE  SIXTIES   . 
II. — KINDRED  AND  OTHERS  .... 
III. — SOME  LONDON  PUBLISHERS  OF  THE  SIXTIES 
IV.— G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS  .... 
V. — SOME  AMERICANS.         .... 
VI. — SOME  JAPANESE  FRIENDS 

VII. — AVOCATIONS 

VIII.— OXFORD 

IX. — CAMBRIDGE.         ..... 

X. — SOME  ENGLISH  FRIENDS 
XI. — VARIED  EXPERIENCES  .... 

XII. — WORK  ON  THE  GRAND  JURY 
XIII. — WORK  FOR  THE  CITY    .... 

XIV. — THE  FIGHT  FOR  COPYRIGHT  .         .         . 
XV. — THE  BOOK-TRADE  AND  THE  PUBLIC 


FACE 

iii 

I 

28 

44 
60 
80 

154 
166 
192 

220 

237 

277 


x  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XVI. — SOME  LATER  PUBLISHING  UNDERTAKINGS        .  404 

XVII. — ABRAM  S.  HEWITT  AND  OTHER  FRIENDS  .  417 

APPENDIX  :    THE  EUROPEAN  WAR      ....  435 

INDEX  487 


ths 
in  i 


NE\ 


Memories  of  a  Publisher 


(I 


Memories   of  a   Publisher 


CHAPTER  I 
New  "YorK  in  tHe  Sixties 

Beginning  Business.  In  September,  1865,  I  landed  in 
New  York  from  Savannah.  I  was  returning  home  at 
the  completion  of  service  in  the  field  during  the  three  years 
from  September,  1862.  The  record  of  this  service  has 
been  given  in  an  earlier  volume.  I  had  reached  my  twenty- 
first  year,  and  in  October  I  was  able  to  register  for  my  first 
legal  vote  and  to  begin  in  due  form  my  career  as  a  citizen. 
The  three  years  of  service  in  the  army  had,  of  course,  had 
their  own  value  for  experience.  In  any  case,  for  a  young- 
ster who  was  the  eldest  of  seven  boys  and  the  only  one 
old  enough  to  go  to  the  front,  such  service  was,  under  the 
conditions  of  the  war,  inevitable.  I  was  fortunate  to 
have  been  spared  to  return  home  with  no  injury  from 
wounds,  although  there  was  some  impairment  of  health 
due  to  swamp  fevers  in  Louisiana  and  to  the  privations 
of  prison  life  in  ^irginia.  In  the  several  positions  that  I 
had  held  in  my  regiment,  as  private,  sergeant,  quarter- 
master, adjutant,  acting  chaplain,  and  acting  major,  I 
had  learned  how  to  obey  and  had  doubtless  secured  better 
knowledge  of  men  than  could  have  come  to  me  at  the 


2  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

age  of  twenty-one  in  any  experience  in  college  or  in  busi- 
ness. There  was,  however,  of  necessity,  a  loss,  that 
could  never  be  made  up,  of  whatever  advantages  were  to 
be  obtained  during  the  years  between  eighteen  and  twenty- 
one  in  college  training.  I  had  never  ceased  to  regret 
the  sacrifice  of  what  may  be  called  the  groundwork  of 
education  that  comes  to  any  fairly  industrious  student  in 
the  ordinary  college  course.  I  had  also  missed  the  per- 
sonal relations  with  classmates,  which  are,  I  find,  valued, 
and  very  properly  valued,  by  college  men  throughout  all 
their  later  years.  The  loss  of  the  opportunity  of  utilizing 
the  years  of  youth  for  getting  a  first  start  in  business  was 
to  me  a  matter  of  smaller  regret.  It  was  true  that,  during 
the  years  of  war  in  which,  while  certain  business  interests 
were  depressed,  there  had  come  about  large  opportunities 
for  advantage  in  special  and  sometimes  speculative  chan- 
nels, youngsters  of  about  my  generation,  or  even  younger, 
had  often  been  able  to  bring  together  proceeds  which  in 
some  cases  proved  to  be  the  beginnings  of  great  fortunes. 
On  this  point,  however,  I  did  not  trouble  myself  seriously. 
I  could  not  but  think  that  there  would  be  opportunities 
in  the  future  for  making  money  if  that  proved  to  be  in 
itself  desirable.  I  found  that  my  father  had  requirement 
for  any  business  ability  that  I  might  be  found  to  possess. 
He  was  at  the  time  of  my  return  holding  the  post  of  Col- 
lector of  Internal  Revenue  to  the  Eighth  District  of  New 
York,  to  which  he  had  been  appointed  in  1862  by  President 
Lincoln.  The  appointment  had  come  more  particularly 
through  the  recommendation  of  Mr.  Bryant,  whose  name 
headed  the  list  of  the  six  bondsmen.  My  father's  pub- 
lishing interests  had,  during  the  term  of  his  office  as 
Collector,  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  his  friends,  Hurd 
&  Houghton,  but  some  service  was  required  to  keep  track 
of  this  business  and  of  the  accounts.  The  books  were 
being  sold  by  Hurd  &  Houghton,  but  the  accounts  with 


Beginning  Business  3 

the  authors  had  still  to  be  taken  care  of  under  my  father's 
direction.  My  father  gave  me  the  appointment  of  Deputy 
Collector,  and  I  had  the  responsibility  of  placing  my 
signature  on  the  receipts  to  the  taxpayers.  The  Eighth 
District  included  the  Murray  Hill  region  which  at  that 
time  contained  the  largest  income  payers  in  the  United 
States.  I  remember  handling  a  receipt  to  A.  T.  Stewart 
for  a  payment  of  over  $225,000.  This  payment  covered 
the  special  war  tax  assessed  for  the  incomes  to  1864,  and 
Stewart's  income  for  that  year  had,  therefore,  been  not 
less  than  $2,250,000.  My  signature  has  never  been 
worth  so  much  since.  I  was  also  placed  in  charge  of  the 
accounts  of  the  publishing  business,  and  I  had  the  oppor- 
tunity, in  frequent  visits  to  Hurd  &  Houghton,  of  securing 
some  ideas  which  were  to  be  valuable  to  me  later  as  to 
the  methods  of  conducting  a  publishing  business. 

Early  in  1866,  as  a  result  of  a  difference  of  opinion 
between  my  father  and  the  leaders  who  were  managing 
the  political  affairs  of  President  Andrew  Johnson,  and 
who  were  apportioning  upon  the  office-holders  the  assess- 
ments required  for  Johnson's  political  campaign,  my 
father's  term  in  office  as  Collector  was  brought  to  a  close. 
The  account  of  this  matter,  which  was  by  no  means 
creditable  to  the  intelligence  or  common-sense  of  the 
management  of  that  time  of  the  relations  between  the 
national  government  and  its  officials,  is  given  in  detail 
in  the  Memoir  of  my  Father.  He  took  his  publications 
out  of  the  hands  of  Hurd  &  Houghton,  whose  management 
of  his  publishing  interests  had  been  faithful  and  effective, 
and,  with  myself  as  a  junior  (and  entirely  inexperienced) 
partner,  reconstituted  t^e  publishing  concern  under  the 
name  of  G.  P.  Putnam  &  Son.  My  knowledge  of  the 
publishing  business,  or  of  business  of  any  kind,  was  at 
that  time  practically  nil,  but  I  was  glad  to  find  that 
the  training  I  had  secured  during  my  service  as  quarter- 


4  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

master,  as  commissary,  and  as  regimental  executive, 
could  be  utilized  to  advantage  in  the  systematizing  of 
office  details  and  in  the  management  of  an  office  staff. 

The  resources  of  the  publishing  concern,  and  the  re- 
sources of  publishing  business  generally,  had  been  seri- 
ously impaired  during  the  four  years  of  war  conditions; 
and  it  was  by  no  means  an  easy  task  in  the  years  im- 
mediately succeeding  the  war  to  build  up,  with  inadequate 
capital,  a  publishing  business.  The  burden  of  war  taxation 
was  rather  greater  for  those  years  than  it  had  been  while 
the  war  was  going  on.  During  the  four  years  in  which 
the  Republic  was  fighting  for  its  existence,  the  people  had 
made  cheerfully  great  financial  sacrifices.  It  was  only, 
however,  when  the  great  struggle  was  over  and  the  citizens 
realized  that  the  country  was  saved,  that  their  thoughts 
were  again  free  to  return  to  their  own  individual  concerns 
and  their  business  requirements.  In  addition  to  the 
enormous  loss  of  resources,  the  war  had,  of  course,  in  its 
destruction  to  life  and  in  the  undermining  of  the  health 
of  thousands  of  those  whose  lives  had  been  spared,  fur- 
ther weakened  the  actual  wealth  of  the  country.  The 
enormous  blunders  of  the  reconstruction  period,  which 
delayed  so  seriously  the  restoration  of  the  commercial 
and  industrial  life  of  the  South,  affected  also  unfavourably 
the  interests  of  the  merchants  in  the  North,  who  had  been 
hoping  again  to  build  up  trade  relations  in  the  States 
south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  In  spite,  therefore, 
of  the  great  feeling  of  satisfaction  for  what  had  been  ac- 
complished by  the  war  and  the  relief  of  the  families  whose 
representatives  had  been  spared  to  come  back,  the  ten 
years  succeeding  1865  were,  for  many,  years  of  trouble 
and  of  anxiety.  The  revival  of  business  was  for  years  to 
come  also  interfered  with  and  hampered  by  the  continu- 
ance of  the  oppressive  war  taxes  and  by  the  unsettled 
condition  of  the  currency.  The  premium  on  gold  lasted 


Beginning  Business  5 

for  a  period  of  about  ten  years  after  the  close  of  the  war, 
and  during  these  years,  as  far  as  specie  payments  were 
concerned,  the  banks  continued  to  be  in  a  state  of  sus- 
pension. Merchants  doing  business  with  Europe,  were 
obliged  to  pay  higher  prices  for  their  goods  on  the  ground 
of  the  resulting  impairment  of  individual  as  well  as  of 
national  credit.  Market  prices  continued  high  and  les- 
sened slowly  only  as  the  premium  on  gold  fell.  The  fact 
that  the  standard  of  value  was  not  fixed  necessarily  inter- 
fered with  a  wholesome  extension  of  business.  Merchants 
bought  from  hand  to  mouth  in  the  expectation  that  in 
the  near  future  they  might  be  able  to  make  their  purchases 
at  closer  rates. 

The  special  war  taxes  were  in  1867  taken  off  from  Ameri- 
can manufactures  and  a  year  or  two  later  the  taxes  that 
had  been  collected  through  check  stamps  and  receipt 
stamps  were  also  cancelled,  but  the  long  list  of  customs 
charges  remained  at  the  high  war  rates.  It  was  the 
expectation  that  in  1866,  as  the  government  expenditures 
were  reduced,  and  the  corresponding  burdens  on  American 
manufacturers  were  cancelled,  these  customs  charges 
would  also  be  scaled  down.  During  the  half  century 
after  the  close  of  the  war,  the  country  saw  a  succession 
of  modifications  of  the  tariff,  but  with  the  single  exception 
of  the  Cleveland-Wilson  tariff  of  1894,  a^  the  revisions 
resulted  in  an  actual  increase  in  the  greater  portion 
of  the  duties,  so  that  new  burdens  were  placed  upon 
the  public. 

It  was  the  hope  that  the  Dingley  Bill,  the  monstrosity 
of  1899,  which  imposed  higher  duties  than  had  ever  before 
been  known  in  this  country  (or  I  believe  in  any  other), 
must  constitute  the  culmination  in  this  long  series  of 
legislative  abominations,  but  the  year  1909  witnessed 
the  enactment  of  a  tariff  act  which  had  been  introduced 
into  Congress  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  reducing  the 


6  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

burdens  of  taxation,  but  which,  for  a  long  series  of  articles 
of  general  consumption,  actually  increased  the  amounts 
paid  by  the  American  consumer.  The  consumer  had 
the  further  annoyance  that  by  far  the  larger  portion  of 
the  heavy  expenditures  made  through  the  tariff  went,  not 
into  the  national  treasury,  but  into  the  pockets  of  a  fav- 
oured clique  of  manufacturers  who  had  been  permitted 
to  shape  in  the-  committee  rooms  the  tariff  provisions 
for  the  articles  in  which  they  were  directly  interested. 

In  1866,  while  there  was,  as  stated,  a  revival  of  business 
activity  throughout  the  community,  and  while  there  was 
a  good  deal  of  wealth  that  had  been  chiefly  made  through 
speculation  in  products  the  prices  of  which  had  been  in- 
creased by  the  war,  it  was  the  case  that  this  new  wealth 
was  largely  in  the  hands  of  citizens  not  interested  in 
literature.  The  book-buying  of  the  South  had,  with  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  come  practically  to  an  end,  and 
there  was  no  revival  of  it  for  a  long  series  of  years  there- 
after. A  considerable  portion  of  the  people  in  the  North 
who  before  the  war  had  been  buyers  of  books,  were,  in  the 
years  succeeding  1866,  no  longer  able  to  indulge  in  such 
luxuries.  These  were  the  people  who  had  fixed  incomes 
payable  in  the  legal  tender  of  the  day.  During  the  years 
of  the  appreciation  of  gold,  the  income  coming  to  rentiers 
of  this  class  in  the  form  of  legal-tender  paper  dollars 
brought  to  its  possessor  so  much  smaller  return  in  pur- 
chasing power  or  in  securing  the  necessities  of  life,  that 
for  all  practical  purposes  his  income  was  seriously  cur- 
tailed. Through  this  change  in  currency  values,  or  in 
exchange  values,  thousands  of  retired  merchants,  women, 
and  others,  no  longer  able  to  take  advantage  of  business 
opportunities,  were  reduced  to  comparative  poverty. 
These  were  the  people  who  had  constituted  a  large  portion 
of  the  book-buying  community.  The  nouveaux  riches, 
who  had  made  money  out  of  shady  contracts  or  through 


Beginning  Business  7 

speculations  in  pork,  could  not  easily  be  reached  by  the 
publishers  of  standard  literature.  For  some  time,  there- 
fore, after  the  close  of  the  war,  the  sales  of  books  in  higher- 
class  literature  continued  to  be  disappointing,  and  the 
only  offsetting  advantage  was  that  during  this  period 
outsiders  were  not  tempted  into  the  publishing  business. 

In  taking  hold  of  business  responsibilities  with  my 
father,  I  found  that  his  vitality  had  been  impaired  through 
years  of  constant  work  and  of  continuous  anxieties,  and 
that  he  no  longer  possessed  his  old-time  elasticity  and 
hopefulness.  He  had  gone  through  his  life  with  hardly  an 
illness,  and  with  an  enormous  capacity  for  work,  but,  in 
common  with  many  other  Americans,  his  strength  was 
now  impaired  by  long  nervous  strain.  My  relations  with 
him  during  these  years  of  our  business  association  were 
very  close.  I  had  myself  had  no  business  experience, 
excepting  the  few  months  in  the  Collector's  office,  and 
there  the  requirements  were  very  different  from  those  in 
a  publishing  concern.  My  personal  interests  were  in  fact 
in  quite  a  different  direction.  If  the  family  conditions 
had  permitted,  I  should  after  the  close  of  the  war  have 
resumed  my  scientific  training.  I  might,  in  returning  to 
Gottingen,  have  completed  my  studies  in  forestry,  and 
have  returned  to  the  country  to  be  an  early  worker  (in 
fact  I  should  have  been  practically  the  first  American 
worker)  in  the  task  of  building  up  a  forestry  system  for 
the  States  and  for  the  national  territories.  It  was  evident 
to  me,  however,  that,  with  the  conditions  obtaining  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  my  service,  however  inadequate,  was 
absolutely  needed  by  my  father.  In  place,  therefore,  of 
going  back  to  chemistry,  physiological  botany,  and  for- 
estry, I  devoted  myself  to  the  mastery  of  bookkeeping. 

My  father  put  into  my  hands  the  management  of  the 
finances  and  of  the  accounts  of  the  concern.  He  said 
frankly  that  he  had  himself  never  been  much  of  an  ac- 


8  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

countant  and  that  the  disaster  that  had  come  upon  him  in 
1857  was  m  large  part  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  handed 
over  to  another  the  full  control  of  this  all-important  di- 
vision of  his  business.  "Now,  Haven,"  he  added,  "I  can 
transfer  the  charge  of  the  cash  and  of  the  accounts  to  my 
partner  with  a  sense  of  absolute  confidence."  He  was 
right  enough  in  his  confidence  in  the  integrity  of  purpose 
of  his  junior,  but  he  hardly  realized  how  much  that  junior 
had  to  learn.  Without  business  training  or  experience, 
and  unskilled  in  general  affairs,  I  was  hardly  in  a  position 
to  render  any  valuable  service  in  publishing  undertakings. 
During  the  whole  period  of  our  partnership,  however, 
whatever  the  worries  or  disappointments,  I  do  not  recall 
a  single  occasion  in  which  a  bitter,  or  even  an  impatient, 
word  came  from  the  senior.  The  spirit  of  gentleness  and 
the  sturdy  patience  of  my  father's  nature  seemed  to  be 
proof  against  all  trials.  With  a  keen  sense  of  justice,  he 
never  permitted  himself  to  make  those  about  him  unhappy 
or  uncomfortable  because  he  himself  might  be  in  trouble, 
or  because  his  calculations  had  gone  wrong.  Even  when 
there  was  legitimate  cause  for  criticism  or  for  reprimand, 
the  word  of  reproof  was  always  administered  with  so  much 
personal  consideration  and  with  such  evident  hesitancy 
of  regret  that  the  principal  feeling  produced  upon  the 
delinquent  was  one  of  sympathy  with  the  chief  that  he 
should  have  found  occasion  for  so  painful  a  duty. 

Some  Friends  of  my  Father.  I  had  the  privilege  of 
coming  into  personal  relations  with  some  of  the  note- 
worthy citizens  who  were  friends  of  my  father,  and  to 
whom  reference  has  already  been  made  in  the  earlier 
Memoir.  I  may  recall,  among  others,  George  William 
Curtis,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  Parke  Godwin,  Frederick 
Beecher  Perkins,  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman,  Bayard 
Taylor,  Dr.  Francis  Lieber,  Richard  Henry  Stoddard, 
John  Jay,  and  Henry  W.  Bellows. 


Some  Friends  of  my  Father  9 

The  personality  of  Dr.  Francis  Lieber,  who  called  from 
time  to  time  at  the  office,  was  impressed  upon  my  memory. 
He  used  to  delight  in  telling  me  of  his  experience  as  a 
soldier.  He  had  been  one  of  the  young  recruits  called  into 
service  in  the  Prussian  fight  for  freedom  of  1815,  when 
the  spirit  of  domination  that  was  to  be  fought  against 
by  Europe  was  not  that  of  the  Hohenzollern,  which  in 
this  year,  1914,  constitutes  the  impending  shadow,  but 
that  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  Lieber  had  fought  under 
Blucher,  and  had  been  wounded  at  Ligny,  and  carried 
with  him  (with  some  pride)  throughout  his  life  the  limp 
that  recalled  the  French  bullet.  Lieber  was  a  great  jurist, 
and  had  been  a  valuable  counsellor  for  the  Administration 
in  Washington.  He  was  keenly  interested  in  the  subject 
of  international  copyright,  and  took  part  in  one  of  the 
organizations  of  which  my  father  was  secretary.  He  was 
fully  conscious  of  his  own  abilities  and  felt  that  he  was  a 
citizen  of  world- wide  reputation.  I  remember  his  coming 
into  the  office  one  morning  with  a  question  on  his  lips. 
"Now,  friend  Putnam,  and  you  Putnam,  Jr.,  who  in 
your  opinion  is  the  most  conceited  man  at  this  time  in  our 
country?"  I  saw  by  the  expression  of  my  father's  face 
that  the  impression  in  his  mind  was  the  same  as  that 
in  mine,  but,  under  the  circumstances,  we  could  hardly 
speak  out  our  thoughts.  Lieber  then  went  on  with  the 
theory  that  the  conceited  culprit  was  Salmon  P.  Chase. 

The  most  attractive  personality  in  the  group  of  my 
father's  friends  was  George  William  Curtis,  whose  earlier 
relations  with  my  father  have  already  been  referred  to. 
I  had  remembered  at  the  time  of  Curtis's  visits  to  our 
country  home  in  Yonkers  being  impressed  with  his  dis- 
tinctive beauty,  his  grace  of  manner,  and  his  charm  of 
utterance.  As  a  young  man,  he  already  possessed  the 
exquisitely  toned  voice  which  in  later  life  helped  him  to 
become  one  of  the  orators  of  the  country.  I  was  struck 


io  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

at  once  by  his  natural  feeling  of  consideration  for  those 
about  him.  A  good-looking  and  clever  youngster  begin- 
ning to  make  his  work  felt  in  the  world  is  as  a  rule  a  self- 
absorbed  and  subjective  personality,  but  it  was  evident 
from  the  quiet  sympathetic  interest  that  Curtis  expressed 
(expressed  as  if  he  really  felt  it)  in  the  life  of  our  home 
circle,  in  which  he  was  a  frequent  visitor,  that  he  was 
a  man  of  ready  understanding  and  of  large  sympathy. 
These  were  the  qualities  that  gave  him  through  life  an 
assured  charm  and  an  increasing  influence.  It  was  diffi- 
cult for  any  man  to  withstand  a  wish  of  Curtis,  or  to  fail 
to  feel  the  fullest  confidence  in  the  relation  of  Curtis  to 
any  purpose  or  work  to  which  he  was  devoting  himself, 
and  the  purposes  and  the  work  to  which  during  the 
seventy  years  of  his  life  he  gave  his  time  and  his  great 
abilities  were  always  for  the  interest  of  the  community. 
He  remains  in  my  memory  as  the  best  possible  type  of  an 
American  gentleman,  a  leader  to  whom  politics  meant  not 
a  game  of  trickery  carried  on  for  personal  advantage,  but 
an  expression  of  convictions  and  an  attempt  so  to  shape 
the  opinions  of  men  that  the  interest  of  the  state  should  be 
maintained  and  furthered.  I  found  myself  later  asso- 
ciated with  Mr.  Curtis  in  the  work  of  the  Copyright 
League  and  in  that  of  the  Civil  Service  Reform  Associa- 
tion. The  record  of  the  fight  for  copyright,  in  which 
Curtis  was  one  of  the  most  valued  leaders,  will  be  told 
later. 

If  the  political  ambitions  of  Curtis  had  equalled  his 
political  capacity,  he  might  easily  have  gone  far  in  leader- 
ship. He  realized,  however,  at  an  early  date  that  while 
his  influence  could  be  made  effective  in  helping  to  bring 
about  sound  judgment  on  certain  of  the  issues  of  the  day, 
he  was  not  of  a  temperament  to  be  accepted  under  the 
political  methods  then  in  force  for  larger  political  leader- 
ship or  for  national  office.  Curtis  would  have  adorned  any 


Some  Friends  of  my  Father  n 

office  to  which  he  might  have  been  elected  or  appointed. 
He  was  a  scholar  with  full  knowledge  of  history  and  with 
a  trustworthy  memory  that  enabled  him  to  bring  his 
knowledge  of  the  past  to  bear  effectively  and  ingeniously 
upon  the  elucidation  of  the  problems  of  the  present.  He 
was  a  charming  speaker,  and  his  speeches  at  times  reached 
a  high  level  of  eloquence.  Through  the  years  of  his  active 
life,  his  influence  was  given  to  elevating  the  standard  of 
American  politics.  In  the  work  of  civil  service  reform, 
he  took  an  early  and  active  part  in  company  with  citizens 
like  Carl  Schurz,  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  Daniel  C.  Oilman, 
E.  L.  Godkin,  Charles  Collins,  Everett  P.  Wheeler, 
Edward  Gary,  and  other  good  citizens,  and  he  was  during 
the  last  years  of  his  life  President  of  the  National  Civil 
Service  Reform  Association.  For  some  years  he  held  the 
position  of  political  editor  of  Harper's  Weekly,  and  his 
leaders  in  the  Weekly,  uniting  as  they  did  trenchant  force 
of  conviction  with  graceful  charm  of  expression,  gave 
what  might  be  called  the  keynote  to  the  purpose  and  to 
the  possibilities  of  political  reform  and  of  the  highest 
standard  of  political  action.  These  leaders  were  backed 
up  with  graphic  force  by  the  clever  cartoons  of  Thomas 
Nast,  at  that  time  the  art  editor  of  the  Weekly. 

Curtis,  who  had  been  an  old-time  anti-slavery  worker 
and  who  had  taken  part  in  the  organization  of  the  Repub- 
lican party,  found  more  difficulty  than  did  Schurz  in 
shaking  off  the  party  ties.  For  Curtis,  as  for  many  other 
independent  Republicans,  the  cleavage  came  with  the 
Elaine  campaign,  when  he  found  himself,  not  a  little  to  his 
own  surprise,  speaking,  as  always,  eloquently,  and  work- 
ing with  full  vigour  in  behalf  of  the  Democratic  candidate. 
Curtis  was  offered  by  President  Hayes  the  post  of  Minister 
to  St.  James,  a  place  for  which  on  every  ground,  except 
that  of  an  income  sufficient  to  make  good  the  absurdly 
inadequate  allowance  of  salary,  he  was  admirably  fitted. 


12  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

He  would  have  made  an  honourable  addition  to  the  long 
list  of  distinguished  Americans  who  have  represented  the 
Republic  in  London.  Mrs.  Curtis  was,  however,  more  or 
less  of  an  invalid,  and  she  dreaded  the  responsibilities  that 
come  to  a  Minister's  wife.  She  was  devoted  to  her  brilliant 
husband,  but  was  curiously  jealous  of  his  political  ambi- 
tions and  of  any  influence  that  carried  him  out  into  the 
public  and  away  from  his  hearthstone.  She  had  no 
ambitions  for  his  career,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  this 
adverse  influence  constituted,  in  addition  to  his  own  in- 
dependence of  character,  an  important  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  his  securing  a  continued  leadership  in  national  affairs. 

I  had  the  privilege  of  coming  into  close  association  with 
Curtis  in  the  work  of  the  executive  committee  of  the  Civil 
Service  Reform  Association  during  the  years  of  his  presi- 
dency and  later  in  the  fight  for  international  copyright. 
He  always  impressed  me  as  the  highest  type  of  American 
citizen,  a  man  to  be  charmed  with  and  to  be  enthusiastic 
about.  It  was  a  liberal  education  for  a  young  man  to 
have  the  privilege  of  association  with  a  leader  whose 
ideals  were  so  high,  whose  methods  were  so  intelligent, 
and  whose  intellectual  powers  were  so  distinguished  and 
so  fully  under  control. 

Parke  Godwin  had  been  associated  with  my  father  in 
the  earlier  years  of  the  business,  and  was  again  from  time 
to  time  a  visitor  in  our  publishing  office.  Godwin  and 
Curtis  were  curiously  antithetical  to  each  other,  but  they 
had  become  close  friends.  Godwin  had  a  strong  head  and 
fine  eyes,  but  was  otherwise  homely.  He  was  somewhat 
rough  in  his  manners  and  occasionally,  as  I  thought, 
affectedly  rough  in  his  dress  and  expression.  He  could  and 
did  write  forcible  English,  but  he  permitted  himself  in 
his  writings  a  larger  freedom  of  utterance  than  would  have 
seemed  fitting,  or  even  possible,  to  the  more  refined  stand- 
ard of  Curtis.  As  far  back  as  January,  1856,  Godwin  had 


Church  Associations  13 

contributed  to  Putnam's  Monthly  an  article  setting  forth 
the  principles  upon  which  must  be  founded  the  new  politi- 
cal party  at  that  time  in  process  of  formation.  The  main 
purpose  of  the  party,  namely  the  restriction  of  slavery 
within  the  limits  of  the  territory  at  that  time  occupied, 
the  fulfilment  of  the  obligations  entered  into  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  Republic  in  1789,  and  confirmed  in  1820  and 
1850,  and  the  protection  of  the  territory  of  the  Republic 
from  any  further  incursions  of  slavery,  was  set  forth  with 
admirable  clearness  and  force. 

At  the  first  National  Convention  of  the  new  Republican 
party  held  in  June,  1856,  which  resulted  in  the  nomination 
of  Fremont  and  Dayton,  young  Godwin,  who  was  present 
as  a  representative  of  the  press,  was  called  upon  to  do 
service  as  clerk  for  the  committee  on  platform.  As  a 
result  of  this  more  or  less  accidental  appointment,  certain 
of  the  important  planks  in  the  platform  came  to  be  identi- 
cal in  character  and  almost  identical  in  expression  with 
Godwin's  article  in  Putnam1  s  Monthly. 

The  principles  of  the  Republican  party  were,  of  course, 
the  result  of  the  work  of  hundreds  of  thinkers  and  of 
leaders,  but  Godwin  might  justly  claim  a  large  share  in  the 
credit  for  the  first  formulation  of  these  principles.  It  was 
as  a  result  of  the  contentions  maintained  in  the  Chicago 
Convention  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  elected  President, 
and  that  the  long  fight  against  slavery  was  finally  brought 
to  a  close  in  1865  with  the  success  of  the  war  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  Union. 

Church  Associations.  At  the  time  of  my  return  from 
the  army,  I  was  still  a  member  of  the  First  Baptist  Church. 
During  my  service  in  the  regiment,  I  had  undertaken,  in 
addition  to  my  responsibilities  as  adjutant,  to  do  the  work 
of  the  chaplain,  whom  it  had  been  necessary  to  dismiss  for 
general  unfitness.  The  longer  I  preached,  the  less  of  a 
Calvinist  I  found  myself,  and  shortly  after  my  return,  I 


14  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

made  application  to  the  deacons  who  were  in  charge  of 
the  Church,  which  was  at  that  time  without  a  pastor,  to 
put  me  out.  Objections  were  raised,  and  I  was  interested 
to  discover  that  there  was  elasticity  in  the  interpretation 
of  my  obligations  as  a  Calvinist,  but  my  own  convictions 
in  the  matter  were  clear,  and  later  I  secured  what 
might  be  called  an  honourable  discharge.  Before  making 
my  application  to  the  deacons,  I  thought  it  desirable, 
however,  to  test  more  fully  the  foundations  of  my  belief, 
and  partly  for  this  purpose  and  partly  because  I  felt  it  to 
be  in  order  to  render  some  service  to  the  church  in  whose 
membership  my  name  had  for  some  years  been  included, 
I  accepted  an  appointment  to  do  some  teaching  in  a 
mission  school  in  Mulberry  Street.  The  building  of  the 
First  Baptist  Church  was  at  that  time  in  Broome  Street 
(this  building  was  later  transferred  to  the  Congregation  of 
a  Synagogue)  and  its  diocese  or  parish  responsibility 
extended  southward  through  the  tenth  ward.  The  class 
of  which  I  took  charge  for  a  couple  of  hours  on  Sunday 
afternoon  included  "hoodlums"  of  various  nationalities, 
and  the  matter  of  discipline  gave  me  some  anxiety.  In 
the  task  of  keeping  the  boys  in  order,  however,  my  experi- 
ence in  the  regiment  stood  me  in  good  stead.  My  pupils 
knew  that  I  was  a  veteran  officer,  and  a  few  dark  references 
to  the  methods  of  discipline  in  the  army,  such  as  hanging 
up  by  the  thumbs  and  the  carrying  of  knapsacks  loaded 
with  wet  sand,  had  a  valuable  influence  in  restraining 
disorder  which  my  fellow-teachers  found  quite  trouble- 
some. In  the  work  of  instructing  the  class  in  the  main 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  I  found  my  experience  in  the 
preaching  to  the  regiment  repeated.  The  more  I  at- 
tempted to  make  clear  to  my  pupils,  I  will  not  say  Calvin- 
istic  but  even  Trinitarian  belief,  the  more  it  became 
evident  that  the  doctrinal  conclusions,  so  to  speak,  ran 
away  from  me.  I  could  not  honestly  teach,  and  in  fact  I 


Church  Associations  15 

could  not  effectively  teach,  what  I  did  not  myself  hold, 
and,  therefore,  I  did  not  continue  the  class  beyond  the 
winter  months  for  which  I  had  promised  service. 

I  experimented  somewhat  with  the  leading  preachers 
who  at  that  time  occupied  pulpits  in  the  city.  I  remember 
being  attracted  by  Dr.  Washburn,  of  Calvary,  a  scholarly 
and  fair-minded  representative  of  what  in  England  is 
classed  as  the  Broad  Church.  I  listened  occasionally  to 
Dr.  Osgood,  who  belonged  to  the  conservative  group  of 
Unitarians,  and  who  a  year  or  two  later  followed  the 
example  of  Dr.  Huntington,  a  much  abler  and  more 
philosophic  man,  in  going  over  to  the  Episcopal  fold.  I 
gathered  the  impression  later  that  Osgood  was  disap- 
pointed at  his  reception  in  the  Episcopal  Church.  There 
came  to  him  neither  bishopric  nor  any  other  distinction 
such  as  had  been  given  to  Huntington.  He  was  intellec- 
tually a  timid  man,  not  sure  of  his  own  position  and  in- 
capable, therefore,  of  bringing  forcibly  to  bear  upon 
others  convictions  which  were  not  quite  clear  to  himself. 

For  some  time  I  took  part  with  the  congregation  of 
Dr.  Bellows,  an  old  friend  of  my  father,  and  a  citizen  who 
had  rendered  distinctive  service  to  the  country  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Sanitary  Commission  and  in  many  other  ways. 
Dr.  Bellows  was  pastor  of  the  First  Unitarian  Society, 
where  he  had  been  preceded  by  a  series  of  scholarly 
divines.  His  sermons  interested  me,  but  I  never  came 
into  very  close  or  sympathetic  relations  with  the  man.  He 
was  clear-headed  and  wide-minded,  and  had  a  sense  of 
humour  which  nearly  always  goes  with  clearness  and  in- 
sight. I  should  hardly  think  of  him  as  spiritually-minded, 
although  he  did  emphasize  for  his  hearers  (a  group  which 
included  some  of  the  most  intelligent  people  in  New 
York)  the  value  of  what  he  called  the  spiritual  as  opposed 
to  the  material  side  of  life.  With  Bellows,  however,  the 
term  "spiritual"  stood  rather  for  the  influence  of  intellect 


16  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

or  for  reason  than  for  what  in  my  earlier  Calvinistic  train- 
ing I  had  understood  by  the  term. 

I  finally  found  the  most  satisfactory  use  for  my  Sunday 
mornings  in  attending  service  in  the  hall  where  Octavius 
B.  Frothingham,  who  had  recently  come  from  Boston, 
directed  the  ministrations  of  what  was  at  the  outset  called 
the  Third  Unitarian  Society.  Mr.  Frothingham's  father, 
Nathaniel  Frothingham,  had  been  a  near  friend  and  close 
intellectual  associate  of  Dr.  Channing,  and  he  was  at  the 
time  of  his  death,  a  few  years  later,  one  of  the  best 
representatives  in  Boston  or  in  the  country  of  Channing 
Unitarianism.  The  son  Octavius,  at  this  time  a  man  of 
forty,  found  himself,  as  he  went  on  with  his  preaching, 
diverging  from  the  platform  of  Channing  and  of  his  father. 
The  first  sermons  preached  by  him  in  New  York  brought 
question  to  the  minds  of  Dr.  Bellows,  Dr.  Osgood,  and 
others  of  the  more  conservative  Unitarians  in  and  about 
New  York  in  regard  to  the  orthodoxy  of  the  preacher  of 
the  Third  Congregation.  As  this  criticism  took  shape, 
Frothingham  and  the  friends  who  had  accepted  with  him 
the  responsibility  for  the  management  of  the  congregation, 
decided  that  they  would  not  ask  for  Unitarian  fellowship. 
Such  fellowship  seemed  likely  to  involve  some  sacrifice 
of  independence  of  utterance  on  the  part  of  their  pastor. 
Frothingham  was,  I  think,  both  troubled  and  relieved  at 
the  conclusion.  He  was  a  man  of  keen  sympathies  and  it 
troubled  him  to  be  thrown  out  of  brotherly  relations  with 
men  who  were  friends  and  associates  of  his  father,  and 
from  whom  he  had  expected  to  receive  a  cordial  welcome. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  was  certainly  a  satisfaction  to  be 
able  to  shape  his  own  thinking,  teaching,  and  preaching 
without  reference  to  possible  criticism  on  the  part  of  other 
teachers,  who  were  also  older  preachers  in  the  community. 
The  matter  of  "orthodoxy"  must  always  have  presented 
special  difficulties  to  Unitarians.  In  the  Episcopal  Church 


Church  Associations  17 

"orthodoxy"  could  be  checked  in  some  fashion  by  the 
creeds,  by  the  articles,  and  by  the  actions  of  the  diocesan 
convention,  or  by  the  utterances  of  the  bishops.  Ortho- 
doxy for  a  Calvinistic  congregation  could  be  referred  back 
to  the  tenets  of  Calvin  as  expressed  in  the  greater  or  the 
lesser  Westminster  Catechism.  But  orthodoxy  among  the 
Unitarians  was  to  be  determined  rather  as  is  the  sound- 
ness of  a  legal  decision  that  depends  not  upon  statute  but 
upon  common  law.  It  could  be  referred  back  only  to  the 
utterance  of  one  or  more  preceding  teachers  who  had  been 
accepted  as  authorities,  and  from  decade  to  decade  there 
arose  increasing  difference  of  opinion  among  those  calling 
themselves  Unitarians  as  to  who  were  the  authorities  and 
as  to  which  utterance  was  to  be  accepted  as  authoritative. 
Frothingham  found  himself  in  New  York  occupying  a 
position  somewhat  similar  to  that  held  by  Theodore 
Parker,  the  pastor  of  the  famous  Twenty-eighth  Congre- 
gational Society  in  Boston. x  If  accepted  by  no  authority, 
he  and  his  congregation  had  at  least  the  satisfaction  of 
being  responsible  to  no  authority  but  that  of  their  own 
consciences  and  of  the  Divine  Power.  Frothingham  did 
not  possess  the  exceptional  vital  force  that  characterized 
the  utterances  of  Parker;  but  he  had  a  much  larger  bump 
of  reverence  and  a  clearer  sense  of  the  continuity  of  human 
thought  and  of  human  belief.  The  thing  which  had  been 
or  the  conclusion  heretofore  accepted,  it  might  now  be 
necessary  to  put  to  one  side,  but  it  was  entitled  to  full 
respect  for  the  service  rendered  to  earlier  generations  for 
which  indeed  it  had  probably  been  the  right  thing.  Parker 
was  more  inclined  to  describe  as  pernicious  from  the 
beginning  doctrines  and  creeds  that  he  was  putting  to  one 
side,  and  which  were  in  his  judgment  of  no  avail  and  of 

1  It  was  Parker  whom  Lowell  described  (in  the  Fable  for  Critics)  as, 
"He  was  so  ultra-Cinian, 
He  shocked  the  Socinians." 


1 8  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

little  importance  for  the  men  to  whom  he  was  talking. 
Frothingham,  with  a  fuller  measure  of  scholarly  attain- 
ments and  a  more  accurate  knowledge  of  the  history  of 
human  thought,  looked  at  faith  as  an  evolution,  a  de- 
velopment among  the  different  divisions  of  mankind,  that 
was  being  shaped  from  century  to  century,  with  more  or 
less  consistency  and  effectiveness,  to  meet  the  needs  and 
ideals  of  successive  generations. 

Frothingham  insisted  upon  the  substantial  truth  of  the 
statement  which  in  its  original  utterance  was  probably 
given  simply  as  a  witticism. 

Man  makes  God  in  his  own  image.  Man  shapes  his  faith, 
that  is  to  say  the  expression  of  his  relation  to  the  supernal, 
of  the  power  of  which  he  is  more  or  less  conscious,  according 
to  his  own  powers  of  analysis  or  of  reasoning. 

Frothingham  related  to  me  an  incident  that  his  father 
had  told  him  in  regard  to  the  beginning  of  the  Channingite 
movement  against  the  Calvinistic  control  of  the  Congre- 
gational churches.  In  response  to  an  appeal  issued  by  Mr. 
Channing,  the  ministers  of  the  Congregational  churches 
of  Boston  and  the  adjacent  territory  who  were  in  sym- 
pathy with  Channing's  protest  against  the  Calvinistic 
creed,  had  come  together  in  Channing's  church  in  Boston 
to  formulate  a  platform.  The  hour  came  for  the  meeting, 
but  Channing,  the  leader,  had  not  appeared.  Nathaniel 
Frothingham,  as  his  neighbour  and  nearest  friend,  was 
sent  to  Channing's  house  to  ascertain  the  difficulty.  He 
found  the  divine  wrapped  up  in  flannels  and  with  his  feet 
in  a  tub  of  hot  water.  "Ah!  Brother  Frothingham,"  said 
Channing,  "I  am  sadly  disappointed  to  be  a  delinquent, 
but  our  friends  will  have  to  get  on  without  me.  I  am 
disabled  with  an  attack  of  neuralgia.  This  bitter  east 
wind  has  been  too  much  for  me."  "East  wind!"  replied 
Frothingham,  "why  the  wind  is  from  the  south-west  and 


Church  Associations  19 

the  air  is  balmy  and  warm."  Channing  looked  out  sadly 
through  his  window  to  a  neighbouring  vane  which  surely 
enough,  as  pointed,  marked  the  wind  from  the  east. 
"Oh,  Brother  Channing,"  said  Frothingham,  "that  vane 
is  untrustworthy;  it  is  on  a  Baptist  Chapel  and  it  has  in 
some  way  become  fixed."  The  instant  Channing  learned 
that  the  wind  was  not  from  the  east,  his  neuralgia  dis- 
appeared. He  threw  off  his  flannels,  got  into  his  boots, 
and  hurrying  down  to  the  church  on  the  arm  of  his  friend, 
he  opened  the  meeting  with  an  address  that  became 
famous  in  the  history  of  the  intellectual  life  and  of  the 
theological  development  of  New  England  and  of  the 
country. 

Frothingham  was  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  refined 
intellectuality.  The  radicalism  of  half -educated  or 
"half-baked"  people  who  doubted  without  knowing 
and  who  thought  themselves  liberal  because  they  were 
able  to  indulge  in  cheap  sneers  at  things  reverenced  by 
thoughtful  people,  was  to  him  not  only  unsympathetic, 
but  repellent.  He  had  the  utmost  sympathy  with 
the  real  convictions  of  other  people,  however  much  he 
found  it  impossible  to  accept  these  convictions  as  his  own. 
He  preached,  however,  from  the  starting  point  that  things 
must  be  proven  and  made  clear  for  the  beliefs  of  each 
generation  of  men.  Traditionary  convictions  seemed  to 
him  to  be  no  convictions  at  all.  He  insisted  that  each 
thoughtful  and  conscientious  man  must  work  out  his  own 
relations  to  the  universe.  His  instruction  was  "to  try 
all  things"  and  to  hold  fast  to  that  which  each  man,  work- 
ing honestly  with  such  faculties  as  had  been  given  to  him 
by  the  Creator,  found  to  be  good. 

Mr.  Frothingham  was  still  in  middle  life  when  he  was 
told  by  his  medical  adviser  that  he  must  be  freed  from  the 
strain  of  the  responsibilities  of  a  preacher.  The  congrega- 
tion gave  him  first  leave  of  absence  for  a  year,  and  when  at 


2O  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

the  close  of  the  year  the  physician's  verdict  was  con- 
firmed, they  decided  that  there  was  no  man  in  the  United 
States  who  could  fill  his  place  on  their  platform,  and  that 
it  would  be  wiser  to  dissolve.  The  trustees  were  instructed 
to  utilize  the  funds  that  had  been  accumulated  for  the 
society  (an  amount  of  about  fifty  thousand  dollars) 
in  such  manner  as  might  be  most  nearly  in  line  with  the 
purpose  for  which  the  subscriptions  had  been  secured. 
The  money  was  distributed  by  us  among  several  "mission- 
ary" or  Unitarian  congregations  in  the  far  West.  I  recall 
the  difficulty  that  the  trustees  experienced  in  securing  a 
dissolution.  We  found  that  while  it  was  comparatively 
easy  to  incorporate  a  "body"  for  religious  purposes,  the 
State  was  very  conservative  in  permitting  such  a  body  to 
close  its  corporate  existence.  It  took  five  years  before  we 
were  able  to  get  through  the  Legislature  a  bill  permitting 
us  to  bring  to  a  legal  close  the  life  of  the  congregation 
whose  actual  operations  had  ceased  years  back. 

At  the  time  of  Mr.  Frothingham's  death,  sixteen  years 
later,  a  memorial  meeting  was  held  in  New  York  at  the 
instance  of  Dr.  Felix  Adler,  whose  congregation  gave  for 
the  purpose  the  use  of  Carnegie  Hall.  The  life  and  the 
work  of  Octavius  Frothingham  were  commemorated  in 
addresses  given  by  certain  of  his  closer  associates,  Edmund 
C.  Stedman,  George  C.  Barrett,  Felix  Adler,  and  myself. 

Some  of  the  more  active-minded  members  of  Mr. 
Frothingham's  congregation  organized  a  society  more  or 
less  literary  in  its  purpose  and  character  called  The  Fra- 
ternity, which  carried  on  operations  with  fortnightly 
meetings  for  a  term  of  seven  years.  According  to  the  usual 
routine,  two  or  three  editors  were  made  responsible  for 
the  proceedings  of  each  meeting,  and  under  their  direction 
a  paper  was  prepared,  the  name  of  which  varied  from 
fortnight  to  fortnight.  In  this  journal  was  presented  to 
the  society  material  very  varied  in  character.  Sometimes 


New  York  in  the  Late  Sixties  21 

the  main  essay  would  be  the  work  of  a  scholarly  writer, 
and  would,  with  gravity  of  purpose,  present  a  subject 
that  was  entitled  to  careful  consideration ;  while  at  others, 
according  to  the  temperament  of  the  editors,  the  journal 
would  be  made  up  of  humorous,  not  to  say  hilarious,  con- 
tributions which  had  no  other  purpose  than  amusement. 
But  grave  or  gay,  the  papers  and  the  discussions  that 
usually  followed  their  reading  were  always  characterized 
by  thought,  and  often  by  eloquence  and  humour.  Mr. 
Frothingham  took  his  share  in  responsibilities  as  editor, 
contributor,  and  speaker,  but  we  were  all,  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable, put  on  the  same  plane,  and  the  youngsters  were 
encouraged  to  speak  out  such  minds  as  they  found  they 
possessed. 

The  society  was  on  the  whole  not  only  a  pleasure  but  a 
training  for  its  members.  When  its  operations  were  finally 
brought  to  a  close,  seven  volumes  containing  the  Proceed- 
ings were  properly  bound  in  full  morocco,  and  the  out- 
going President,  James  Herbert  Morse,  was  instructed  to 
retain  them  through  his  life  and  to  make  arrangements  for 
their  final  disposition  in  the  Astor  Library,  always  pro- 
vided that  the  Astor  would  accept  the  charge. 

New  York  in  the  Late  Sixties.  New  York  in  1866 
showed  many  changes,  social,  political,  and  business,  from 
the  conditions  of  the  quiet  and  more  provincial  city  that 
I  had  known  before  the  war.  Notwithstanding  the  enor- 
mous losses  to  the  resources  of  the  country  that  had  been 
caused  by  the  waste  of  war  during  four  years,  the  ruin  of 
the  Southern  planters  and  of  their  business  representa- 
tives in  the  North,  and  the  undermining  of  many  of  their 
lines  of  business  interests,  the  war  had  brought  to  certain 
groups  of  men  larger  resources  than  had  ever  before  been 
known  in  the  country.  There  was  a  great  increase  in  os- 
tentation of  life  in  the  city,  and  there  came  into  existence 
a  division  of  society  that  could  be  called  plutocratic. 


22  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

Mr.  Bryant,  who  was  at  the  time  and  who  remained 
until  his  death  the  President  of  the  Century  Club,  was  the 
recognized  head  of  the  literary  group.  New  York  was  at 
that  time  beginning  to  attract  to  itself  the  literary  abilities 
from  the  older  circles  in  New  England,  while  an  increasing 
number  of  capable  younger  writers  from  the  West  came  to 
the  city  as  journalists,  or  hoping  to  make  a  place  for  them- 
selves with  the  magazines  or  in  the  publishing  offices. 

In  the  late  '6o's,  New  York  had  not  yet  outgrown  certain 
of  its  old-fashioned  or  so-called  provincial  habits.  One 
of  the  customs  that  had  been  retained  was  that  of  making 
New  Year's  calls,  a  practice  that  had  been  inherited  in 
New  York  from  the  Dutch  founders  of  the  city.  Long 
before  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century,  the  growth 
of  the  metropolis  had  made  impossible  this  pleasant  and 
convenient  habit  of  coming  into  touch  (at  least  once  a 
year)  with  a  circle  of  family  friends,  but  in  1866,  the  ladies 
still  stayed  at  home  on  New  Year's  Day,  and  old  men  and 
youngsters  did  what  they  could  in  the  hours  between 
eleven  in  the  morning  and  midnight  to  check  off  with  calls 
of  from  five  to  fifteen  minutes  their  own  visiting  list  with 
that  of  their  wives,  their  sisters,  or  their  mothers.  In  my 
own  diary  for  the  first  of  January,  1866, 1  find  the  entry, 
"made  thirty-five  calls."  I  remember  on  that  day  coming 
back  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  for  a  word  with  my 
mother  and  finding  in  her  parlour  old  Mr.  Bryant.  It  was 
sleeting  violently  outside,  and  the  luxurious  young  men  of 
the  day  were  going  about  in  coupes.  It  was  the  practice 
in  order  to  save  expense  for  two  or  three  men  to  join  in  the 
expense  of  a  carriage  for  the  day.  Mr.  Bryant,  however, 
had  trudged  through  the  sleet,  and  in  response  to  some 
word  from  my  mother  of  appreciation  of  his  effort  in 
coming  out  in  such  weather,  replied  cheerily:  "Why,  I 
rather  like  a  fresh  temperature,  Mrs.  Putnam.  It  is  only 
the  young  men  who  are  chilly  and  lazy." 


New  York  in  the  Late  Sixties  23 

Fifteen  or  eighteen  years  later,  New  Year's  calls  had 
become  a  tradition  of  the  past.  In  connection  with  the 
difficulty  of  getting  over  the  territory,  the  visits  had  de- 
generated into  a  mere  hasty  greeting  and  farewell,  and  fi- 
nally, before  the  practice  was  abandoned  altogether,  one's 
social  obligation  was  considered  as  having  been  fulfilled 
when  a  card  had  been  placed  in  a  basket  left  outside  the 
door  for  the  purpose. 

In  1867,  I  had  the  opportunity  of  hearing  Dickens  give 
in  New  York  readings  from  David  Copperfield  and  from 
some  other  of  the  novels.  I  retained  the  impression  of  a 
great  elasticity  and  variety  of  facial  expression  and  of 
utterance  which  together  brought  to  the  audience  a  most 
vivid  realization  and  real  impersonation  of  each  character. 
I  have  further  in  my  mind  the  picture  of  a  purple  velvet 
waistcoat,  with  a  mass  of  heavy  watch  chain  extended 
across  both  sides.  The  satisfactory  returns  secured  by 
Dickens  during  this  later  sojourn  in  America  from  his 
lectures  and  from  the  sales  of  revised  and  authorized 
editions  of  his  books  caused  him  to  modify  very  materially 
the  impressions  of  the  earlier  visits  which  had  found  record 
in  Martin  Chuzzlewit  and  American  Notes.  At  banquets  in 
Boston  and  in  New  York,  Dickens  made  such  graceful 
acknowledgment  of  his  earlier  exaggerations  and  erroneous 
statements  and  such  charming  appreciation  of  present 
hospitality  that  he  secured  a  full  measure  of  forgiveness 
for  the  bitter  strictures  of  1862. 

In  beginning  work  in  New  York  in  1865,  I  took  up  my 
quarters  in  a  boarding  house  kept  by  Ann  Swift  on  the 
corner  of  Tenth  Street  and  Fourth  Avenue.  The  house 
was  modest  in  its  equipment,  but  also  in  its  charges,  and 
it  presented  the  attraction  of  an  interesting  group  of  fellow- 
boarders.  Miss  Swift  was  a  woman  of  education  and 
intellectual  interests,  and  she  succeeded  during  the  years 
of  her  work  as  boarding-house  manager  in  attracting  to  her 


24  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

circle  of  clients  a  number  of  noteworthy  people  most  of 
whom  became  her  personal  friends. 

The  good  lady  presided  at  her  table  rather  as  a  hostess 
than  as  a  landlady.  She  was  an  old-time  anti-slavery 
worker  and  a  staunch  Republican,  and  her  authority  for 
opinion  and  for  political  action  was  Horace  Greeley's 
Tribune.  Greeley  himself  was  a  caller  at  the  house  from 
time  to  time.  The  boarder  who  was  in  a  hurry  for  his 
coffee  might  occasionally  be  critical  when  the  good  lady 
would  stop,  coffee-pot  in  hand,  to  emphasize  the  wisdom 
of  some  point  made  in  Greeley's  morning  leader.  What- 
ever might  be  the  immediate  question  of  the  day,  Ann 
Swift  always  had  an  emphatic  opinion,  while  it  is  fair 
to  say  that  she  could  give  consideration  to  the  opposing 
opinion  of  the  other  fellow. 

Among  my  fellow  boarders,  I  may  recall  the  following: 
Bayard  Taylor  and  his  wife;  Taylor  was  at  that  time  the 
literary  editor  of  The  Tribune  and  was  also  putting 
through  the  press  one  or  more  books  a  year;  Richard 
Henry  Stoddard  and  Mrs.  Stoddard,  close  friends  of  the 
Taylors;  Stoddard  was  doing  literary  work  for  several 
journals,  and  later  had  charge,  as  librarian,  of  a  rusty  and 
rather  futile  collection  of  books  called  the  New  York  City 
Library;  Mrs.  Stoddard  was  producing  novels  which  were 
recognized  by  the  elite  as  clever,  but  which  failed  to  secure 
any  popular  acceptance;  T.  B.  Aldrich  was  beginning 
his  career  as  a  literary  worker  with  rather  precarious  news- 
paper connections;  Oliver  Johnson  belonged  to  half  a 
generation  earlier  than  that  of  his  associates  in  the  house; 
he  had  been  an  active  worker  in  the  early  anti-slavery 
days,  and  was  at  this  time  an  editorial  writer  on  The  In- 
dependent. James  Morgan  Hart  had  been  my  room-mate 
for  a  time  at  Gottingen.  He  was  at  this  time  dallying  with 
the  law,  but  decided  a  little  later  that  he  could  employ  his 
abilities  to  better  advantage  in  scholarship.  He  devoted 


New  York  in  the  Late  Sixties  25 

himself  to  philology  and  comparative  literature,  and  after 
a  professorial  experience  in  Cincinnati,  he  accepted  a  chair 
in  Cornell,  where  he  is  at  this  time,  1914,  Professor  Emeri- 
tus. There  was  also  a  clever  mathematician  named  Oliver 
who  was  earning  his  bread  by  making  calculations  for  the 
Mathematical  Almanac  that  left  him  time  for  researches 
in  the  realms  of  higher  mathematics,  a  realm  of  which  we 
outsiders,  as  he  reminded  us  from  time  to  time,  could 
know  nothing.  It  was  in  the  Swift  boarding  house  that 
Bayard  Taylor  and  his  friends  carried  on  for  a  time  the 
proceedings  of  the  Echo  Club.  The  men  and  women 
(the  group  included  Mrs.  Stoddard  and  later  Mrs.  Aldrich) 
who  came  together  in  this  very  informal  association 
amused  themselves,  under  Taylor's  direction,  in  writing 
poems  which  were  planned  as  echoes  of  the  poets  of  the 
generation.  The  writer  secured  his  text  by  chance  from  a 
slip  drawn  from  a  hat.  Taylor  later  elaborated  the  idea 
and  brought  together  in  a  volume  entitled  The  Echo  Club 
his  own  series  of  Echoes,  many  of  which  are  very  charac- 
teristic. 

I  remember  also  in  the  house  an  old  Irishman  named 
Maturin  who  was  never  tired  of  emphasizing  the  glories 
of  Dublin  beside  which  brilliant  city  he  considered  New 
York  to  be  a  bumptious  village.  From  time  to  time,  he 
would  announce,  with  hand  eloquently  raised  in  air,  that 
he  would  rather  be  kicked  down  Sackville  Street  than 
walk  down  Broadway.  The  question  naturally  came  to 
our  minds,  although  as  a  matter  of  courtesy  we  refrained 
from  thinking  it  out  loud,  "Why  then  are  you  a  resident  of 
New  York?"  He  was  not  the  only  European  who,  having 
abandoned  his  country  on  account  of  the  better  oppor- 
tunities afforded  in  the  great  Republic,  continued  to  cast 
a  halo  of  romance  over  the  conditions  that  he  had  left 
behind  him,  even  though  he  had  found  those  conditions 
insupportable. 


26  New  York  in  the  Sixties 

I  find  from  an  entry  in  my  diary  that  as  late  as  Febru- 
ary, 1866,  my  regiment  had  still  been  retained  in  Georgia. 
When  my  resignation  was  accepted  in  July,  it  was  the 
understanding  that  the  troops  were  to  be  relieved  as  soon 
as  the  Georgians  had  reorganized  their  State  and  municipal 
governments  and  had  secured  some  authority  for  the 
maintenance  of  peace  and  order.  My  fellow-officers  were 
writing  asking  me  to  bring  influence  to  bear  to  have  the 
regiments  recalled  as  the  men  were  anxious  to  get  home 
and  to  take  up  again  their  work  as  citizens.  It  was  July, 
1866,  however,  before  the  troops  were  finally  released. 
In  May,  I  find  a  reference  to  pressure  brought  to  bear  by 
members  of  the  regiment,  which  had  finally  reached  New 
York,  for  help  in  securing  positions  where  they  could 
receive  comfortable  salaries  without  too  much  work.  It 
was,  unfortunately,  the  case  that  army  service,  and  par- 
ticularly service  in  time  of  peace,  had  a  demoralizing 
influence  on  the  capacity  and  the  desire  for  concentrated 
work.  I  was  not  a  man  of  influence  in  New  York,  but  I 
was  able  to  find  channels  of  employment  for  a  few  of  the 
best  of  the  old  comrades. 

I  find  in  the  brief  diary  in  which  I  recorded  only  the 
very  important  events,  an  entry  on  the  day  of  July  7,  1869, 
a  quotation  from  Burnand:  "Happy  thought!  Married!" 
The  entry  goes  on:  "This  is  a  record  of  facts  and  dates 
only,  and  not  of  opinions,  sentiments,  or  feelings,  so  that 
I  have  no  occasion  to  devote  any  large  number  of  words  to 
a  description  of  my  change  of  state."  The  wife  was  the 
fair-haired,  sunny-faced,  sweet-natured  Rebecca  Shepard, 
who  had  joined  my  sisters  in  the  farewell  to  the  young 
sergeant  when  he  sailed  for  New  Orleans  in  1862;  and 
whose  loyal  companionship  it  was  my  privilege  to  enjoy 
for  twenty-five  years. 

In  1870,  my  father  and  I  arranged  to  share  an  apart- 
ment in  the  building  142  East  i8th  Street,  which  had 


New  York  in  the  Late  Sixties  27 

been  designed  by  Richard  M.  Hunt,  and  which  was,  I 
believe,  the  first  of  the  long  series  of  New  York  apartment 
houses.  In  visiting  this  building  before  its  completion, 
my  father  met  with  an  accident  that  brought  him  near  to 
death.  A  descending  mortar  crate,  which  had  gotten  out 
of  control,  knocked  him  over  and  fell  in  part  upon  him. 
The  shock  was  serious  and  its  effects  were  felt  by  him  up 
to  the  time  of  his  death,  two  years  later. 


CHAPTER  H 
Kindred  and  Others 

My  Sister  the  Doctor.  In  1871,  my  sister  Mary  re- 
turned from  Paris,  after  completing  in  the  Medical  School 
of  the  University  a  six-years'  course,  and  securing  with  hon- 
ours her  University  degree.  She  had  had  serious  obstacles 
to  overcome  in  obtaining  admission  to  the  Ecole  de  M6de- 
cine,  in  which,  until  her  application,  there  had  been  no 
women  students.  She  succeeded  through  her  own  ma- 
triculation and  graduation  in  establishing  a  precedent 
that  has  since  been  maintained  for  the  admission  of 
women  to  the  school.  Her  six-years'  sojourn  had  in- 
cluded the  exciting  experiences  of  the  siege  of  Paris 
by  the  Germans  in  the  winter  of  1870-71  and  the  sub- 
sequent rule  of  the  city  by  the  Commune,  but  Mary 
did  not  permit  little  things  like  wars  and  revolutions  to 
interfere  with  any  work  that  she  had  laid  out  for  herself, 
and  she  pursued  her  studies  quietly  through  the  months 
of  turmoil  and  had  her  thesis  in  readiness  on  the  day 
when  the  doors  of  the  University  were  again  opened  for 
business. 

Shortly  after  her  return  to  New  York,  she  mar- 
ried Dr.  Abraham  Jacobi,  a  physician  of  German  birth 
who  had  come  to  this  city  with  a  group  of  the  Forty- 
Eighters,  and  who  had  won  for  himself  an  honour- 
able place  in  his  profession.  He  had  been  associated 

28 


My  Sister  the  Doctor  29 

in  the  Revolutionary  movement  in  Baden  with  Carl 
Schurz,  and  the  two  men,  while  very  different  in  tem- 
perament and  in  method,  had  remained  close  friends,  a 
friendship  of  which  my  sister  naturally  secured  the 
advantage. 

Her  marriage  was  not  permitted  to  interfere  with  her 
professional  work,  in  which  she  speedily  won  for  herself 
a  distinctive  reputation.  She  rendered  a  noteworthy 
service  to  her  sex  and  to  the  profession  in  reorganizing 
the  Medical  College  for  Women  and  in  making  it  possible 
for  women  students  to  secure  an  adequate  medical 
training. 

It  was  through  my  sister,  and  Dr.  Jacobi,  who  con- 
continued  in  close  fellowship  with  his  revolutionary 
comrade,  that  I  was  myself  brought  into  personal 
relations  with  Schurz  and  secured  the  advantage  of  a 
friendship  which  strengthened  through  the  succeeding 
years  until  his  death  in  1907.  Schurz  was  a  man  of  dis- 
tinctive character  and  with  a  curiously  wide  range  of 
interests  and  of  abilities.  At  the  time  of  the  outbreak  of 
1848,  he  was  eighteen  years  old  and  was  a  student  at  Bonn. 
I  remember  his  report  to  me  that  on  hearing  shouted  from 
the  street  the  news  of  the  organization  of  the  revolutionary 
committee  in  Frankfort,  he  ran  down  from  his  attic  and 
joined  himself  at  once  to  a  company  of  students  which 
was  moving  to  the  front  under  the  leadership  of  their  much 
loved  professor,  Kinkel.  "I  never  had  an  opportunity," 
said  Schurz,  "of  returning  to  my  attic,  and  I  left  there 
two  tragedies  that  would,  I  was  confident,  have  delighted 
the  world  and  would  doubtless  have  made  my  reputation 
as  a  dramatist.  The  revolution,  or  possibly  the  failure 
of  the  revolution,"  continued  Schurz,  "brought  great 
misfortunes  upon  Germany,  but  I  have  always  classed 
among  the  serious  misfortunes  of  the  time,  the  loss  of  those 
tragedies." 


30  Kindred  and  Others 

Paul  Morphy.  I  had  from  boyhood  been  interested 
in  the  game  of  chess  considered  both  as  a  diversion  and 
as  a  more  or  less  scientific  study;  and  I  had  read  with 
interest  of  the  brilliant  contests  carried  on  in  New  York 
and  in  other  cities  of  the  States  and  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic  by  the  young  lawyer  from  New  Orleans. 
When  Morphy  first  met  in  New  York  the  chess  leaders 
of  the  country,. he  was  but  twenty-six  years  of  age.  His 
experience  in  chess  could  have  covered  but  a  brief  period ; 
but  he  showed  a  wonderful  insight,  a  power  of  analysis, 
and  a  genius  for  combination  that  gave  him  the  victory 
over  the  strongest  of  the  veterans.  I  did  not  have  an 
opportunity  at  that  time  of  seeing  Morphy,  but  in  playing 
out  some  of  the  games  from  the  newspaper  reports,  I  felt 
as  if  I  had  secured  a  personal  impression  of  his  methods. 

In  January,  1863,  I  found  myself  in  New  Orleans  as  a 
member  of  Banks's  invading  force.  The  city  had  been 
denuded  of  its  younger  men  who  had  gone  to  the  front 
with  the  crack  regiments  of  the  State.  One  saw  in  the 
streets  only  old  men,  women,  and  coloured  folks.  In  en- 
quiring in  regard  to  one  handsome  young  fellow  who  was 
passing,  I  was  told  that  it  was  Paul  Morphy,  lawyer  and 
heretofore  chess  player.  I  was  told  further  that  he  had 
given  up  his  chess  and  was  not  making  a  success  at  the 
Bar.  It  appeared  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  convince 
himself  that  the  cause  of  the  Confederacy  was  well  founded 
or  that  Louisiana  had  a  right  to  secede.  He  had,  there- 
fore, not  gone  to  the  front  with  the  men  of  his  own  age 
and  social  standing.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  no  inten- 
tion of  taking  up  arms  against  his  State.  He  remained, 
therefore,  between  the  two  great  war  parties,  sympathizing 
with  neither  and  exposed  to  the  loneliness  that  must  always 
come  to  the  "in-between"  man.  He  ought  under  the 
circumstances  to  have  carried  himself  off  to  Paris  or  else- 
where. Remaining  in  his  home  city,  he  was  exposed  to 


The  Peabody  Sisters  31 

the  criticisms  and  gibes  of  the  older  men  whose  sons  had 
gone  to  the  front  and  of  the  girls  of  society  who  had  no 
patience  with  a  Louisianian  who  would  not  fight  for  the 
pelican  flag.  I  learned  later  that,  partly  doubtless  as  a 
result  of  this  loneliness  and  social  persecution,  and  partly 
perhaps  as  a  result  of  the  pressure  brought  upon  his  brain 
by  chess  playing  to  the  nth  power,  Morphy  fell  into 
melancholia.  He  died  before  the  close  of  the  war  of  what 
was  called  softening  of  the  brain. 

The  history  of  chess  shows  that  very  few  of  the  leaders 
have  possessed  general  capacity,  or  capacity  for  anything 
but  chess.  I  am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  the  capacity 
for  playing  chess  is  not  due  to  intellectual  power.  It 
seems  as  if  the  chess  capacity  were  a  special  faculty  of  its 
own;  it  has  certainly  very  rarely  been  connected  with  a 
great  or  even  a  large  intellect.  The  fact  that  during  the 
past  two  centuries  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  chess 
championships  have  been  held  by  Hebrews  is  to  be  borne 
in  mind  in  connection  with  the  quite  general  accusation 
that  the  Hebrews  are  interested  only  in  what  will  secure 
money  or  social  power.  Chess  players  can,  even  with 
the  fullest  measure  of  success,  secure  but  a  meagre  return 
for  their  time  and  for  a  serious  expenditure  of  vitality, 
and  those  who  are  not  winners  have  nothing  to  show  for 
their  labours. 

The  Peabody  Sisters.  I  had,  as  a  youngster,  come  to 
know  three  sisters  who  were  first  cousins  of  my  father, 
Elizabeth,  Mary,  and  Sophia  Peabody.  Mary  became 
the  wife  of  the  well-known  educator  Horace  Mann,  while 
Sophia  married  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  The  eldest  sister, 
Elizabeth,  devoted  the  energies  of  her  long  life  to  the 
service  of  her  fellow-men  (and  women).  She  was  a  born 
altruist,  and  her  energies  were  always  absorbed  in  the 
furtherance  of  "causes."  She  had  an  intensity  of  feeling 
in  regard  to  the  necessity  for  securing  an  immediate 


32  Kindred  and  Others 

remedy  for  anything  that  had  impressed  itself  upon  her 
as  a  wrong;  and  she  found  it  difficult  to  understand  how 
other  people,  more  selfish  than  herself,  or  with  a  larger 
measure  of  personal  responsibilities  calling  for  their 
attention,  could  be  apathetic  or  could  fail  to  respond 
to  her  earnest  applications  for  help  with  time  and  with 
money.  Elizabeth's  judgment  was  often  at  fault,  but 
her  integrity  of,  purpose,  her  absolute  unselfishness,  her 
readiness  for  sacrifice  of  time  and  money  (of  which  she 
had  never  had  but  the  smallest  amount)  made  her  a 
distinctive  personality.  I  can  but  think  of  her  as  a  saint, 
although  it  must  be  admitted  that  she  was  sometimes 
rather  a  frowsy -looking  saint.  In  her  devotion  to  the 
causes  of  others,  she  was  apt  to  be  forgetful  of  care  for 
herself,  even  to  the  attention  necessary  for  ordinary  neat- 
ness of  dress. 

At  the  time  of  my  marriage,  in  1869,  Elizabeth  and  her 
sister  Mary  Mann  (at  that  time  a  widow)  occupied  a  little 
cottage  in  Cambridge.  Their  limited  income  made  it 
difficult  for  them  to  extend  a  full  measure  of  hospitality 
to  the  representatives  of  the  various  causes  for  which 
they  were  working.  The  little  back  garden,  in  which 
they  had  placed  a  couple  of  tents,  was,  however,  at  the 
service  of  successive  groups  of  refugees.  During  the  time 
of  the  "underground  railroads,"  these  tents  were  often 
occupied  by  negroes  on  their  way  to  Canada.  After  the 
close  of  the  war,  the  guests  included,  at  different  times, 
Poles,  Hungarians,  and  South  Americans.  The  sisters 
provided  the  lodging,  while  it  was  understood  that  the 
refugees  would  find  their  own  board;  but  if  they  were 
absolutely  destitute,  they  would  receive  a  share  of  the 
modest  meal  of  Boston  beans  or  prunes  and  rice.  I  re- 
member calling  upon  the  sisters  in  Pollen  Street  shortly 
after  my  marriage.  Cousin  Elizabeth  received  me  with 
exceptional  cordiality.  "Haven,"  she  said,  "you  are 


The  Peabody  Sisters  33 

just  the  man  I  wanted  to  see.  There  is  work  waiting 
for  you  in  South  America.  I  have  some  gentlemen  now 
in  the  back  garden  who  will  tell  you  about  it."  The 
refugees  at  the  moment  on  hand  were  representatives  of 
a  party  that  had  a  revolution  in  train — I  think  it  was  in 
Paraguay.  They  were  in  the  States  trying  to  collect 
money,  and  they  wanted  to  take  back  with  them,  to  help 
steer  the  government  that  they  were  expecting  to  estab- 
lish, one  or  more  American  citizens.  My  cousin  Eliza- 
beth had  decided  that,  youngster  as  I  was,  I  could  be  made 
of  service  as  minister  of  education,  and  she  thought  that 
it  was  a  great  opportunity  for  myself  and  my  young  wife 
to  make  a  career.  I  demurred  on  several  grounds.  I  was 
not  enthusiastic  about  Paraguay  as  a  place  of  residence; 
I  questioned  my  own  equipment  for  the  post  of  minister 
of  education;  and  I  was  very  doubtful  about  the  success 
of  the  revolution  that  was  in  train.  I  did  have  an  inter- 
view with  the  refugees,  who  in  broken  but  eloquent  Eng- 
lish tried  to  make  clear  to  me  the  magnificence  of  the 
opening  that  was  being  offered,  but  the  suggestion  was 
put  to  one  side.  I  learned  later,  with  some  surprise, 
that  this  particular  revolution  had  been  a  success,  and 
that  if  I  had  gone  to  South  America  with  my  cousin's 
guests,  I  might  have  been  minister  of  education  for  at  least 
six  months.  This  was  at  the  time  the  average  duration 
of  the  governments  of  Paraguay. 

Elizabeth  tried  the  experiment  at  one  time,  in  company 
with  her  sister  Mary,  of  keeping  a  bookshop  in  Boston. 
Partly  from  lack  of  capital  and  business  experience,  and 
partly  because  she  devoted  too  much  of  her  own  time  and 
of  her  counter  space  to  the  care  of  "missionary  "  pamphlets 
and  other  unremunerative  publications  having  to  do 
with  her  various  causes,  the  shop  did  not  prove  success- 
ful, and  it  had  to  be  given  up.  She  always  felt,  however, 
that  the  year  or  two  with  which  she  had  been  connected 


34  Kindred  and  Others 

with  trading  operations,  modest  as  these  had  been,  must 
have  secured  for  her  a  business  experience,  and  she  prided 
herself  upon  her  business  acumen. 

I  remember  her  telling  me  that  she  had  succeeded  at 
one  time  in  securing  from  a  Boston  merchant  a  promise 
of  a  bequest  of  ten  thousand  dollars  for  one  of  her  causes. 
It  was  at  a  time  when  the  work  of  the  life  insurance  com- 
panies was  becoming  extended  and  the  calculations  of  the 
actuaries  as  to  expectation  of  life  were  being  talked  over 
outside  as  well  as  within  insurance  circles.  The  cause  in 
question  had  urgent  need  of  immediate  funds,  and  it 
occurred  to  Elizabeth  that  the  bequest  which  was  to  come 
from  the  merchant  in  question  after  his  death  might  be 
cashed  in  for  its  present  value.  She  arrived  at  some  cal- 
culation as  to  the  merchant's  expectation  of  life,  and  then 
called  upon  him  and  presented  the  figures  showing  what 
under  her  calculation  was  the  present  value  of  the  proposed 
bequest.  She  assumed  that  the  merchant  would  be 
prepared  without  delay  to  give  a  check  for  the  amount. 
She  was  very  much  surprised  at  his  lack  of  enthusiasm 
for  the  suggestion.  He  happened  to  be  one  of  the  men 
for  whom  the  working  out  of  the  expectation  of  life  was 
repelling.  He  seemed  to  consider  the  calculation  and 
the  suggestions  behind  it  an  impertinence,  and,  very  much 
to  Elizabeth's  disappointment,  he  withdrew  the  promise 
of  a  bequest. 

Elizabeth  Peabody  had  interested  herself  in  the  fight 
against  slavery,  in  the  independence  of  Poland,  in  the 
revolution  in  Hungary,  in  the  contest  for  equal  suffrage, 
in  the  attempt  to  secure  total-abstinence  laws,  in  prison 
reform,  in  higher  education  for  women,  in  liberalism  in 
religion,  etc.  She  lived  to  be  over  eighty  years  of  age,  and 
from  the  time  of  her  childhood  her  years  had  all  been 
active.  A  number  of  the  causes  in  which  she  had  been 
interested  did  show  progress  in  her  lifetime,  but  irrespec- 


David  A.  Wells  35 

tive  of  the  success  of  the  cause,  she  found  happiness  in  the 
fighting. 

David  A.  Wells.  In  1854,  a  young  man  brought  a 
letter  of  introduction  from  Norwich,  Connecticut,  to 
my  father  in  New  York  with  the  word  that  he  had  a  little 
capital  and  that  he  would  like  to  enter  the  publishing 
business.  His  name  was  David  A.  Wells.  He  was  a 
graduate  of  Yale  and  had  given  some  study  to  economics. 
He  had  convinced  himself,  principally  on  the  ground  of 
his  experiences  with  the  manufacturing  centres  of  New 
England,  that  the  prosperity  of  the  country  was  based 
upon  the  protective  system.  He  had  given  attention 
not  only  to  economics,  but  to  social  science  and  to  physics. 
My  father  was  impressed  with  the  industry  and  ambition 
of  the  young  New  Englander,  and  made  him  a  member 
of  the  publishing  staff,  but  he  declined  to  accept  him  as  a 
general  partner  on  the  ground  that  the  young  man  had 
better  make  a  test  for  a  year  or  two  before  deciding  to 
accept  publishing  as  a  career.  Two  years  later,  Wells 
decided  that  he  was  not  well  fitted  for  a  business  man 
and  that  he  preferred  to  devote  himself  to  scientific  and 
economic  research.  He  became,  as  later  history  shows, 
one  of  the  leading  economists  of  the  country.  As  he 
progressed  with  his  studies  in  the  history  of  economic 
science  and  came  to  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the  experience 
of  other  nations,  he  found  that  his  protectionist  theories 
were  no  longer  tenable.  The  protectionist  Congressmen 
of  the  day  were  apt  to  refer  with  a  sneer  to  the  "  academic 
theories"  of  students  of  economic  history,  but  in  the  case 
of  Wells,  his  historical  studies  were  connected  with,  and 
in  fact  based  upon,  a  personal  and  intelligent  observation 
of  the  work  of  American  manufacturers,  and  of  the  con- 
ditions and  the  interests  of  the  American  market. 

Wells  became,  and  remained  until  his  death,  a  sturdy 
believer  in  the  wisdom  and  advantage  from  every  point  of 


36  Kindred  and  Others 

view  of  the  freest  possible  system  of  commercial  exchanges. 
He  took  the  ground  that  the  functions  of  government 
ought  to  be  restricted  to  the  preservation  of  order  and 
of  peace  within  its  territory,  the  enforcement  of  justice 
among  its  citizens  and  residents,  and  the  maintenance 
of  dignified  and  equitable  relations  with  other  powers. 
He  held  that  while  the  influence  of  government  could 
occasionally  be  utilized  to  advantage  for  the  furthering 
of  some  particular  industry  of  special  importance  to  the 
community,  a  system  or  practice  of  government  interfer- 
ence with  business  must  certainly  produce,  as  in  past 
years  it  certainly  had  produced,  serious  disadvantages  in 
furthering  speculative  conditions  in  business  which  had 
come  to  depend  upon  the  support  of  the  government, 
and  in  favouring  certain  industrial  groups  in  the  commun- 
ity at  the  expense  of  other  groups  and  of  consumers  as  a 
whole.  It  seemed  to  Wells  that  no  gain  to  be  credited 
to  the  establishment  or  the  maintenance  of  business, 
however  desirable  in  itself,  could  be  sufficient  to  offset 
the  demoralizing  influence  upon  great  divisions  of  industry 
on  the  one  hand  and  upon  legislators  on  the  other,  through 
making  business  dependent  upon  the  results  of  elections 
and  the  personal  favour  of  the  members  of  majorities  in 
Congress. 

I  had  the  privilege  as  a  youngster  of  making  my  first 
economic  studies  under  the  direction  of  Wells,  and  I  be- 
lieve now,  as  he  had  taught  me  to  believe  fifty-five  years 
ago,  that  the  principles  and  convictions  then  impressed 
upon  me  are  those  which  must  in  the  future  come  to  be 
accepted  as  the  foundation  of  a  wise  and  equitable  in- 
dustrial system  for  the  United  States  and  for  the  civilized 
world. 

It  is  in  fact  clearer  today  than  it  was  in  1856  that  the 
breaking  down  of  tariff  barriers  between  nations  and  the 
throwing  open  of  the  markets  of  the  world  to  the  pro- 


David  A.  Wells  37 

ducers  who  through  natural  advantages  developed  by  indi- 
vidual skill  are  the  best  fitted  to  supply  those  markets, 
would  remove  the  most  serious  causes  of  friction,  irritation, 
and  antagonism  between  nations,  and  would  enormously 
decrease  the  possibilities  of  war. 

Wells  rendered  noteworthy  service  during  the  Civil 
War  as  Special  Commissioner  of  the  Treasury.  His  opin- 
ion was  given  in  1862  against  the  system,  which  was 
carried  into  effect  under  the  leadership  of  Secretary  Chase, 
of  a  legal-tender  currency.  It  was  the  judgment  of  Wells 
that  the  war  would  have  been  conducted  more  economi- 
cally if  the  funds  required  beyond  what  could  wisely  be 
secured  from  direct  taxation  had  been  obtained  through 
loans.  The  bonded  debt  at  the  close  of  the  war  would, 
of  course,  have  been  very  much  greater,  but  the  enormous 
loss,  direct  and  indirect,  caused  by  the  issue  of  millions 
of  dollars  of  irredeemable  currency  would  have  been 
avoided.  The  later  financial  historians  have  confirmed 
the  judgment  of  Wells. 

Some  years  after  the  war — I  think  about  1873 — Wells 
prepared,  at  the  request  of  the  New  York  State  Admin- 
istration, a  report  upon  taxation,  which  forty  odd  years 
later  is  still  referred  to  as  authoritative.  The  contention 
chiefly  emphasized  in  this  report  was  that  no  State  should 
undertake  to  place  a  tax  upon  anything  that  could  get 
away,  or  could  be  concealed.  It  was  the  first  interest  of 
each  State  not  only  to  retain  within  its  borders  the  various 
industrial  undertakings  already  in  existence  and  all  the 
capital  employed  in  these,  but  to  induce  the  securing  of 
further  capital  and  of  further  enterprising  investors. 
The  placing  of  taxes  upon  personalty  had,  as  Wells  pointed 
out,  the  disadvantage  that  personal  property  could  and 
would  be  removed,  or  could  and  would  be  concealed. 
Such  a  tax  was  paid  only  by  the  widows  and  orphans 
whose  estates  came  into  record,  and  by  a  small  group  of 


38  Kindred  and  Others 

conscientious  citizens.  The  larger  holders  of  personal 
property  were  always  able  so  to  shape  their  investments 
as  to  escape  a  great  proportion  at  least  of  the  personalty 
tax.  Wells  insisted  that  a  tax  on  real  estate,  improved 
and  unimproved,  came,  in  the  natural  course  of  the  work 
of  the  community,  to  be  distributed  among  the  citizens 
in  equitable  proportion,  that  is  to  say,  according  to  the 
use  made  by  the  citizens  of  such  real  estate,  and  according 
to  their  ability  to  pay.  The  landlord  included  such  tax 
in  the  cost  of  the  maintenance  of  his  building,  and  whether 
this  building  were  utilized  for  business  or  for  residence, 
the  tax  added  to  the  rent  was  paid  by  each  tenant  accord- 
ing to  his  ability.  In  the  case  of  business  occupation, 
the  tax  came  to  be  a  part  of  the  cost  of  selling  goods,  and 
in  some  proportion  at  least  could  be  added  to  the  price 
of  the  goods  sold. 

In  regard  to  one  division  of  his  contention,  Wells  came 
into  controversy  with  Henry  George.  George  agreed 
with  Wells  as  to  the  injustice  and  inexpediency  of  a  tax  on 
personal  property.  He  maintained,  however,  that  the 
tax  on  real  estate  should  be  limited  to  the  land,  and  that 
the  building — the  so-called  improvement  of  the  land — 
should  be  exempted.  It  was  George's  idea  that  through 
such  a  division  of  the  tax,  the  so-called  "improvement" 
of  the  land  would  be  hastened,  and  that  the  practice  of 
holding  unimproved  land  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
what  George  (and  others  back  of  George)  called  the  "un- 
earned increment,"  due  not  to  any  exertions  of  the  owner, 
but  to  the  growth  of  the  community,  would  be  rendered 
unprofitable.  George  was  prepared,  if  necessary,  to 
have  the  tax  on  the  land  so  high  that  the  owner  would 
find  it  more  profitable  to  turn  the  land  over  to  the  govern- 
ment (of  city  or  of  state)  than  to  continue  to  hold  the 
title,  and  many  of  George's  followers  held  that  such  a  result 
would  be  in  itself  desirable.  Wells  opposed  these  theories 


David  A.  Wells  39 

vigorously,  and  insisted  that  the  distribution  of  the  burden 
of  taxation  throughout  the  community  could  not  be  car- 
ried on  effectively,  that  is  to  say  equitably,  if  the  buildings 
in  use  for  the  community  were  exempt. 

It  was  my  privilege  more  than  once  to  be  a  guest  of  Mr. 
Wells  in  his  pleasant  old  colonial  home  at  Norwich,  Con- 
necticut. I  recall  sitting  with  him  in  his  library  (he  had 
one  of  the  most  complete  collections  of  economic  books  and 
pamphlets  that  has  been  brought  together  in  this  country) 
as  the  morning  mail  came  in,  and  I  remember  the  little 
groan  of  my  host  as  he  opened  two  letters,  one  from  a  well- 
known  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  the 
other  from  a  leading  Senator.  "These  men,"  said  Wells, 
"expect  me  to  write  their  speeches  for  them."  It  was  a 
serious  burden  for  a  man  whose  eyesight  was  limited  and 
who  had  never  afforded  himself  the  luxury  of  an  amanu- 
ensis. I  heard  then,  as  I  learned  more  fully  later,  that 
members  of  Congress  who  were  interested  in  economic 
subjects  made  a  practice  of  applying  to  Wells  not  only 
for  information,  but  actually  for  the  text  of  their  speeches. 
Wells  was  never  himself  a  member  of  Congress.  He  made 
the  attempt  on  one  occasion,  but  the  protectionist  senti- 
ment of  his  Norwich  district  was  too  strong  for  him.  His 
neighbours  had  a  cordial  affection  for  the  man,  but  they 
could  not  rid  themselves  of  the  conviction  that  his  influ- 
ence in  Washington  would  be  inimical  to  the  manufactur- 
ing interests  of  Connecticut.  But  without  the  knowledge 
of  these  neighbours,  or  for  that  matter  of  the  public,  Wells 
was,  through  his  correspondents  in  Washington,  making 
speeches  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  from  week  to  week. 
He  undoubtedly  had  very  much  to  do  with  educating 
and  directing  the  legislative  opinion  that  finally  took 
shape  in  the  economic  policy  of  Cleveland's  administra- 
tion and  in  the  Wilson  bill.  The  Wilson  bill  was  later 
replaced  by  the  economic  monstrosities  of  the  McKinley 


40  Kindred  and  Others 

and  of  the  Aldrich-Paine  tariff,  but  the  revenue  reform 
measure  of  1913,  with  its  substantial  reduction  in  the 
tariff  burdens,  and  with  a  policy  looking  forward  to  a 
tariff  for  revenue  only,  may  undoubtedly  be  credited  in 
good  part  to  the  teachings  and  the  continuing  influence 
of  David  A.  Wells. 

The  Free  Trade  League.  It  was  in  the  early  seventies, 
I  think  about  .1874,  that  I  became  a  member  of  the  re- 
cently organized  American  Free  Trade  League.  The 
League  had  been  instituted  to  do  what  might  be  practic- 
able to  educate  public  and  legislative  opinion  towards  a 
reshaping  of  the  tariff  policy,  with  the  view  of  applying 
duties  for  revenue  only.  It  was  the  contention  that  every 
dollar,  representing  an  increased  cost  to  the  consumer  of 
articles  in  the  tariff  schedule,  should  find  its  way  into  the 
treasury,  less  only  the  actual  expense  of  collection.  The 
Free  Trade  League  came  into  prompt  correspondence 
with  the  Cobden  Club,  which  had  been  instituted  in 
England,  in  the  late  sixties,  immediately  after  the  death 
of  Richard  Cobden.  The  leaders  in  the  League  became 
honorary  or  corresponding  members  of  the  Cobden  Club. 
Among  the  men  who  took  active  part  in  the  correspond- 
ence and  earlier  work  of  the  League  were,  in  addition 
to  Wells,  Horace  White,  formerly  of  the  Chicago  Tribune 
and  later  connected  with  the  Evening  Post  of  New  York, 
Anson  Phelps  Stokes,  William  Cullen  Bryant  (who  served 
for  some  years  as  President),  Isaac  Sherman,  a  leading 
merchant  of  the  Produce  Exchange,  and  Edward  H.  Van 
Ingen.  Among  the  men  of  the  younger  generation  who 
came  in  were  Richard  R.  Bowker  and  myself.  We  two 
were  placed  on  the  publication  committee  and  a  number 
of  the  monographs  written  at  the  instance  of  the  League 
were  published  with  the  imprint  of  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
Bowker  and  myself  were  both  honoured,  I  believe  on  the 
nomination  of  David  A.  Wells,  by  having  our  names 


The  Cobden  Club  in  the  United  States    41 

included  in  the  list  of  the  American  members  of  the  Cobden 
Club.  It  is  not  possible  for  the  members  of  the  League 
to  claim  that  their  efforts  produced  any  immediate  effect 
on  the  national  policy  of  the  country,  but  it  is  in  order 
to  claim,  writing  nearly  half  a  century  after  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  League,  that  its  influence  and  teachings  are 
finally  having  their  effect  upon  the  opinions  of  voters 
throughout  the  country  and  upon  national  legislation. 

With  Bowker  I  have  had  continuing  association  during 
the  past  fifty  years  not  only  in  free-trade  work,  but  in 
civil-service  reform,  international  copyright,  independent 
politics,  and  other  citizens'  movements. 

The  Cobden  Club  in  the  United  States.  During  one 
of  the  presidential  campaigns,  certain  Republican  papers 
discovered  that  the  Cobden  Club  was  "pouring  British 
gold"  into  the  United  States,  utilizing  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  these  iniquitous  funds  the  service  of  the 
American  members  of  the  Cobden  Club.  The  names 
of  a  number  of  these  members  were  specified  and  the 
list  included  in  addition  to  leaders  like  David  A.  Wells, 
some  less  well-known  men  like  Mr.  Van  Ingen  and  myself. 
Van  Ingen  decided  that  this  charge  gave  a  good  oppor- 
tunity of  testing  the  law  of  libel.  He  made  demand  upon 
one  of  the  papers  which  had  either  originated  or  repeated 
these  charges,  for  a  bill  of  particulars.  "Who  has  been 
receiving  these  supplies  of  British  gold?  How  much  was 
paid?  What  evidence  have  you  of  the  payments?  What 
action  has  been  taken  by  these  American  representatives 
of  the  Cobden  Club  to  influence  the  presidential  or  con- 
gressional election?"  There  was,  of  course,  not  the 
smallest  shred  of  evidence.  Whatever  might  have  been 
the  interest  of  the  Cobden  Club  in  regard  to  the  defeat  of 
the  protectionist  policy  of  the  ruling  Republican  party, 
its  managers  were  too  wise  to  undertake  to  interfere  in  an 
American  election.  In  the  years  in  question,  the  Club 


42  Kindred  and  Others 

most  assuredly  had  no  funds  in  the  treasury  which  would 
have  been  sufficient  to  affect  any  votes  in  the  United 
States,  even  if  the  English  managers  or  their  American 
correspondents  had  been  willing  to  use  funds  for  such  a 
purpose.  The  paper  brought  into  the  first  suit  was  able 
to  make  no  semblance  of  defence.  With  a  verdict  in  his 
favour,  Van  Ingen  was  willing  to  accept  for  damages  a 
mere  nominal  amount.  He  collected  a  similar  amount 
from  one  or  two  hundred  other  Republican  papers  which 
had  parrot-like  repeated  in  that  year  (as  they  had  been 
repeating  for  many  preceding  years)  the  charge  that  Brit- 
ish gold  was  being  used  to  influence  American  elections. 
Van  Ingen's  public-spirited  energy  brought  these  futile 
charges  practically  to  an  end,  and  we  American  members 
of  the  Cobden  Club  were  permitted  thereafter  to  express 
our  convictions  in  regard  to  the  absurdities  of  the  Ameri- 
can protective  system  without  the  necessity  of  meeting 
accusations  that  we  were  British  hirelings. 

Connected  with  the  Free  Trade  League  was  organized 
a  local  association  called  the  Free  Trade  Club,  which 
held  meetings  once  or  twice  a  month.  The  Republican 
party,  with  its  developing  protective  policy,  was  fairly 
entrenched  in  Washington  and  had  the  support  of  a  sub- 
stantial majority  of  votes  in  nearly  all  the  Northern 
States.  There  was  practically  nothing  to  do  but  to  keep 
up  as  large  a  measure  of  propaganda  work  as  possible, 
and  by  the  circulation  of  documents,  reprints  from  Cobden 
Club  pamphlets,  lectures  from  the  Free  Trade  professors 
(and  the  professors  of  economics  were  in  very  large  pro- 
portion strong  opponents  of  protection),  to  maintain  a 
standard  and  to  set  an  ideal  for  the  future.  It  was  our 
hope  that  as  the  youngsters  came  out  of  college  from 
year  to  year,  with  the  kind  of  knowledge  of  the  history 
of  economics  that  would  be  given  to  them  by  professors 
like  W.  G.  Sumner  of  Yale,  we  should  gradually  secure 


The  Cobden  Club  in  the  United  States    43 

a  larger  hold  on  public  opinion,  and  through  the  influence 
of  leaders  bring  the  mass  of  the  voters  to  an  understand- 
ing of  their  own  business  interests.  We  naturally  pointed 
out  in  our  documents  the  essential  interest  of  the  farmer 
in  securing  a  reduction  of  the  war  tariff.  His  wheat  and 
corn,  cattle  and  bacon  had  to  be  sold  in  the  markets  of  the 
world  and  at  the  world's  prices,  while  nearly  all  the  things 
that  he  was  called  upon  to  purchase,  his  clothing,  his 
farm  machinery,  etc.,  were  increased  in  cost  through  the 
protective  tariff. 

We  recalled  to  the  community  that  the  tariff  taxes  had 
been  imposed  as  a  war  necessity,  and  in  connection  with  cer- 
tain taxes  on  American  manufactures,  which  were  also  the 
result  of  the  war  requirements.  It  was  clearly  the  expecta- 
tion of  the  men  in  Congress,  who  in  '61  and  '62  brought  into 
shape  the  war  tariff,  that  when  the  war  expenditures  had 
come  to  a  close,  and  the  heavy  domestic  taxes  had  been 
taken  off,  the  tariff  was,  in  like  manner,  to  be  reduced. 

The  groups  which  were  securing  benefit  through  the 
protection  accorded  by  the  government  were,  however, 
quite  naturally,  unwilling  to  relinquish  the  advantage 
they  had  secured.  They  were  able  also  to  point  out  that 
they  had  made  under  the  protection  of  the  law  and  the 
expectation  of  the  continuance  of  the  barrier  against 
European  competition,  large  investments  in  mills  and 
in  their  plant,  and  that  it  would  be  inequitable  to  make 
any  reductions  in  the  tariff  that  would  destroy  the  value 
of  those  investments.  Expressions  of  opinion  from  spe- 
cific groups  can  always  be  brought  to  bear,  and  at  the  time 
of  tariff  discussion  always  were  brought  to  bear,  very 
promptly  upon  Congress  and  President ;  while  it  was  very 
much  more  difficult  to  make  effective  the  influence  of  the 
consumers  throughout  the  country  whose  interests  were,  as 
we  contended,  so  entirely  disregarded  in  the  maintenance 
and  the  continued  development  of  the  high  tariff  policy. 


CHAPTER  m 

Some  London.  Publishers  of  tKe  Sixties 

Transatlantic  Arrangements.  In  1866,  my  father  sent 
me  to  London  to  make  acquaintance  with  his  old-time 
correspondents  in  the  book  trade,  and  to  come  into  rela- 
tions with  the  younger  men  who  had  grown  up  since  his 
departure  from  England.  I  was  to  report  that,  the  war 
now  being  over,  the  American  publishers  who  had  had 
transatlantic  interests  were  prepared  to  resume  their 
business  relations  and  expected  again  to  utilize  editions 
or  supplies  of  English  books.  It  was  an  old  idea  of  my 
father's  that  it  ought  to  be  possible  to  secure  a  world-wide 
development  for  the  protection  and  the  distribution  of 
books,  irrespective  of  national  boundaries.  He  had 
himself  always  been  opposed  to  the  imposition  of  any 
duties  on  books  or  on  works  of  art.  Whatever  advantages 
there  may  be  in  a  protective  system  and  in  the  appli- 
cation under  such  system  of  duties  on  other  productions, 
a  policy  which  interfered  in  any  way  with  the  work  of 
providing  for  the  people  at  the  lowest  cost  their  supplies 
of  good  literature  and  of  good  art  seemed  to  him  not  only 
a  crime,  but  a  blunder. 

It  was  partly  on  this  ground,  and  also,  of  course,  for 
the  sake  of  justice  to  authors  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
that  my  father  had  from  the  beginning  of  his  work  as  a 
publisher  interested  himself  actively  in  the  possibility 

44 


Transatlantic  Arrangements  45 

of  bringing  the  United  States  into  line  with  the  states  of 
Europe  in  the  matter  of  international  copyright.  He  was 
convinced  that  a  world-wide  recognition,  irrespective 
of  political  boundaries,  of  the  rights  of  the  producers  of 
literature  would  have  the  effect  not  of  increasing  but  of 
lessening  the  cost  to  the  readers  of  the  books  needed.  He 
had  in  mind  a  world's  market  by  means  of  which  the 
author,  securing  some  return  from  each  reader  who  had 
been  benefited  by  the  author's  work,  should  be  able  to 
make  the  charge  for  each  reader  comparatively  moderate. 
The  publishers  being  placed  in  a  position  to  divide  up 
among  a  number  of  editions  the  larger  first  charges  for 
the  production  of  a  work  (the  payments  to  the  author, 
the  cost  of  illustrations  and  maps,  and,  in  the  case  of  coun- 
tries with  the  same  language,  the  cost  of  the  typesetting), 
would  be  able  to  make  a  much  lower  selling  price  for  the 
consumer  than  was  practicable  in  the  case  of  an  edition 
the  sale  of  which  was  restricted  to  a  single  market,  and 
which  had,  therefore,  to  bear  the  entire  "plant"  charges 
— authorship,  illustrations,  typesetting,  etc.  Such  a 
theory  of  international  relations  in  literature,  the  purpose 
of  which  was  to  secure  justice  for  the  producer  while 
furthering  the  business  interest  of  the  consumer,  was  in 
1837,  when  my  father  organized  the  first  American  inter- 
national copyright  association,  too  far  in  advance  of  the 
development  of  public  opinion  and  of  the  education  of 
legislative  opinion  to  produce  any  immediate  results. 
My  father  was  a  man  of  hopeful  disposition,  and  to  the 
day  of  his  death,  he  was  always  believing  that  "  next  year  " 
it  ought  to  prove  practicable  to  secure  favourable  action 
from  Congress.  In  this  belief  he  persisted  from  year  to 
year  in  maintaining  some  measure  of  activity  on  the  part 
of  the  successive  international  copyright  associations  or 
committees,  and  he  was  from  year  to  year  sending  to  his 
old  friends  in  London  reports  in  regard  to  the  efforts  that 


46    Some  London  Publishers  of  the  Sixties 

were  being  made  on  this  side.  It  was  the  case  not  only 
in  1837,  hut  in  the  later  period,  up  to  the  enactment  of 
the  law  of  1891,  that  the  appropriation  of  American  books 
in  England  had  gone  on  just  as  freely  as  that  of  English 
books  for  the  United  States.  The  number  of  works  which 
came  into  print  in  unauthorized  American  editions  was 
larger  simply  because  the  mass  of  current  English  litera- 
ture of  each  year  was  greater,  and  there  were  more  things 
that  the  Americans  wanted,  but  the  English  reprinters 
took  all  the  books  they  wanted  and  practically  all  that 
there  were  in  which  English  readers  were  likely  to  be 
interested.  I  think  it  probable  in  fact  that  in  advance  of 
the  international  copyright  law,  there  was  a  better  system 
on  the  part  of  publishers  in  the  States,  or  at  least  of  the 
leading  houses,  for  payments  to  transatlantic  authors 
than  existed  in  Great  Britain.  It  was  the  understanding 
on  the  part  of  the  publishers  of  this  group  that  when  one 
house  had  introduced  an  English  author  to  the  American 
market,  his  undertakings  with  that  book,  or  with  later 
books  by  the  same  author,  were  not  to  be  interfered  with. 
Such  an  understanding  enabled  the  American  publisher 
to  make  payments  to  the  English  author.  These  remit- 
tances were  called  "courtesy  payments,"  as  the  author 
was  not  in  a  position  to  assign  for  the  so-called  "author- 
ized" edition  in  consideration  of  the  money  received  any 
exclusive  control,  or  to  secure  for  such  edition  protection 
against  the  competition  of  unauthorized  or  piratical  issues. 
These  "courtesy  payments"  amounted  sometimes  to  very 
considerable  sums;  but  it  is  necessary  to  admit  that  the 
so-called  "understanding"  broke  down  occasionally, 
even  with  publishers  of  the  first  group,  when  the  tempta- 
tion for  interference  proved  to  be  too  considerable,  or 
when  publisher  A  found  some  general  grievance  against 
publisher  B,  which  seemed  to  give  a  pretext  for  interfer- 
ence with  B's  undertakings.  There  grew  up  also  out- 


Transatlantic  Arrangements  47 

side  of  the  circle  that  called  themselves  the  leading  or 
legitimate  publishers,  a  group  of  "piracy"  publishers, 
some  of  whom  built  up  a  profitable  business.  These  men 
were  able  to  utilize,  with  no  cost  to  themselves,  the  enter- 
prise and  the  literary  judgment  of  the  publishers  who 
possessed  direct  transatlantic  connections  and  who  had 
knowledge  and  experience  in  the  selection  and  in  the 
handling  of  English  literature.  As  soon  as  an  English 
book  issued  in  an  "authorized  edition "  had  made  a  success 
in  the  American  market  (and  the  chance  of  such  success 
was  at  best  but  speculative  and  came  up  only  with  a  portion 
of  the  books  presented)  the  "pirate"  would  bring  into 
the  market  a  competing  issue  and  as  he  had  no  payment 
to  make  for  authorship,  and  his  book  manufacturing  was 
usually  done  with  a  cheap  standard  of  work,  and  he  had  the 
advantage  of  the  advertising  outlay  incurred  by  the  original 
publisher,  he  was  able  to  undersell  the  authorized  edition. 
The  probability  (which  in  the  case  of  any  book  of 
commercial  importance  could  be  called  a  certainty)  of 
such  piratical  competition,  and  the  occasional  breakdown 
of  the  "courtesy"  arrangement  or  understanding  within 
the  circle  of  the  so-called  "legitimate  publishers,"  ren- 
dered the  business  of  producing  American  editions  of 
English  books  somewhat  more  of  a  lottery  than  is  the 
case  even  with  publishing  generally.  My  father  believed, 
however,  in  the  possibility  of  doing  business  in  the  States 
with  English  books  even  under  such  unsatisfactory  condi- 
tions, and  he  was  always  hopeful  that  in  the  near  future 
those  conditions  were  to  be  altered.  He  believed  also 
that  the  publishers  who,  like  himself,  had  always  refused 
to  issue  American  editions  excepting  under  arrangements 
with  the  transatlantic  authors,  ought,  when  international 
copyright  should  be  established,  to  be  in  a  position  to 
secure  a  decided  business  advantage  over  their  less 
conscientious  competitors. 


48    Some  London  Publishers  of  the  Sixties 

Richard  Bentley.  I  found  that  the  London  publishers 
of  my  father's  generation  belonged  in  large  part  to  the 
group  of  Englishmen  who  had  not  been  sympathetic  with 
the  cause  of  the  North,  and  who  had  been  quite  ready  to 
accept  as  an  established  fact  the  disruption  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republic.  One  of  my  notes  of  introduction  was 
presented  to  Richard  Bentley,  "Publisher  to  the  Queen," 
and  in  listening  to  the  old  gentleman's  remarks  about 
American  conditions,  I  recalled  a  letter  that  he  had  written 
to  my  father  in  1863.  During  the  years  of  the  war,  it 
was  quite  customary  for  English  correspondents  to  add 
either  to  business  or  to  personal  letters  some  word  of 
counsel,  or  more  frequently  of  remonstrance,  in  regard  to 
the  "wicked  persistency  of  the  North"  in  fighting  to 
maintain  the  national  existence.  In  a  final  paragraph  in 
one  of  Bentley's  letters  of  1863,  he  had  written: 

How  long  are  you  foolish  men  of  the  North  going  to  continue 
this  fratricidal  strife?  I  understand  that  the  resources  of 
your  country  are  rapidly  disappearing;  that  its  business  has 
been  undermined,  and  that  grass  is  now  growing  in  the  streets 
of  New  York.  England  holds  itself  ready  to  render  neigh- 
bourly service  in  adjusting  the  relations  between  the  Northern 
States  and  the  new  nation  of  the  South. 

My  father  had,  not  unnaturally,  replied  with  some  little 
warmth  to  this  proposal  for  English  intervention,  a  pro- 
posal made  on  the  assumption  that  the  North  was  ex- 
hausted and  that  the  contest  must  be  practically  at  a 
close.  He  had  mentioned  the  receipt  during  the  same 
week  of  a  letter  from  another  correspondent  of  his,  the 
second  King  of  Siam,  who  showed  intelligent  knowledge 
of  the  conditions  of  the  struggle  and  a  sympathetic 
interest  in  its  successful  result.  My  father's  word  to 
Bentley  referred  to  this  letter  coming  from  a  "semi- 
barbarous  monarch  of  the  Antipodes"  as  showing  a  much 


George  Smith  49 

better  understanding  of  American  conditions  than  that 
possessed  by  his  London  correspondent.  Bentley's  letter 
and  my  father's  reply  were  brought  into  print  in  the 
Evening  Post,  and  my  uncle,  who  was  at  that  time  fiscal 
agent  in  the  United  States  for  Siam,  came  to  my  father 
with  considerable  concern  in  regard  to  the  description 
of  his  client  as  a  "semi-barbarous  monarch."  "Why," 
said  my  uncle,  "the  King  takes  the  Evening  Post  and  he 
will  not  be  at  all  satisfied  with  this  description."  Richard 
Bentley  was  a  Tory  gentleman  of  the  good  old  school, 
who  appeared  to  have  drifted  rather  accidentally  into 
the  position  of  publisher.  He  gave  me  the  impression 
of  having  no  very  keen  interest  in  literary  undertakings. 
He  commiserated  me  upon  the  devastation  of  my  country 
and  said  that  he  supposed  another  generation  must  pass 
before  there  could  be  a  renewal  of  business  in  books.  I 
reminded  him  that  we  had  a  rapidly  growing  and  intel- 
ligent population  in  a  number  of  the  great  States  which 
had  hardly  felt  the  pressure  of  the  war,  and  I  reported 
that  American  publishers  were  expecting  within  the  next 
few  years  to  distribute  satisfactory  amounts  of  good  liter- 
ature. A  few  years  later,  through  the  invalidism  of 
Richard  Bentley,  the  business  came  into  the  hands  of  his 
son  George.  George  impressed  me  as  a  man  of  better 
education  and  of  wider  general  interests  than  his  father, 
but  I  got  the  impression  that  he  was  not  over-ambitious. 
I  believe  that  he  lacked  physical  strength.  Some  years 
later  he  decided  to  transfer  the  business  to  the  Mac- 
millans,  and  an  imprint  that  had  been  honourably  con- 
nected with  English  publishing  for  four  generations  was 
brought  to  a  close. 

George  Smith.  In  the  office  in  Cornhill  of  the  historic 
house  of  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  I  received  a  cordial  greeting 
from  George  Smith,  who  had  known  my  father  well  in  the 
earlier  years.  He  took  me  later  into  his  charming  home 


50    Some  London  Publishers  of  the  Sixties 

circle,  where  I  heard  pleasant  gossip  concerning  some 
of  the  famous  authors  of  the  firm, — Charlotte  Bronte, 
Thackeray,  and  others.  My  relations  with  Mr.  Smith 
continued  from  year  to  year  until  his  death.  I  remember 
a  number  of  years  later,  long  after  the  Cornhill  offices 
had  been  transplanted  to  Waterloo  Place,  being  his  guest 
at  a  dinner  given  at  Greenwich  to  the  contributors  of  the 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography.  The  Dictionary  was 
at  that  time  about  half  completed,  and  question  had  been 
raised  in  regard  to  the  risk,  in  case  the  life  of  the  publisher 
might  not  be  sufficiently  prolonged,  of  the  work  being 
left  as  a  fragment.  The  contributors  had  in  this  question 
a  business  as  well  as  a  personal  interest,  as  the  majority 
of  them  were  not  writing  isolated  articles,  but  had  accepted 
the  responsibility  for  all  the  biographies  relating  to  some 
specific  divisions  of  English  history.  Leslie  Stephen, 
at  that  time  the  editor,  and  Sidney  Lee,  his  able  as- 
sociate, doubtless  had  at  the  time  knowledge  of  the 
founder's  plans.  Mr.  Smith  took  pains,  however,  in  a 
modest  speech  of  greetings  to  his  guests  to  refer  to  this 
apprehension. 

Question  has  been  raised  [he  said]  as  to  what  might  be  the 
fate  of  the  Dictionary  in  case  I  may  not  myself  live  to  see  it 
brought  to  a  conclusion.  I  want  to  make  clear  now  for  the 
information  of  my  associates  in  the  undertaking  and  of  the 
British  public  which  is  pleased  to  consider  the  publication  one 
of  national  importance,  that  in  the  event  of  my  demise — 
may  I  say  my  lamented  demise — arrangements  have  been 
made  which  will  ensure  the  completion  of  the  Dictionary. 

I  understand  that  Mr.  Smith  had  put  funds  in  trust 
which  were  to  be  applied  to  this  purpose.  Having  decided 
to  enter  upon  this  great  work,  which,  as  we  all  understood, 
was  undertaken  not  as  a  matter  of  business  but  with  the 
hope  of  rendering  service  to  the  nation,  he  was  not  the 


Henry  George  Bohn  51 

kind  of  man  to  risk  leaving  it  half  done  or  inadequately 
done.  The  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  constitutes 
one  of  the  most  public-spirited  services  ever  rendered  by  a 
publisher,  or  for  that  matter  by  any  citizen,  to  his  country. 
It  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  the  great  citizen  who  rendered 
this  service  to  Britain  and  to  the  world  did  not  receive 
from  the  government  the  recognition  which  would  have 
pleased  him,  and  to  which  we  can  but  think  he  was 
rightfully  entitled.  He  ought  at  the  time  of  Queen 
Victoria's  first  jubilee,  in  1887,  or  at  the  second  jubilee 
in  1897,  to  have  been  made  Baron  Smith  of  Waterloo 
Place. 

Henry  George  Bohn.  Another  of  my  notes  of  intro- 
duction was  presented  to  Henry  George  Bohn,  whose 
name  is  best  known  to  readers  of  standard  literature  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  in  connection  with  Bonn's 
Libraries.  These  libraries,  comprising  series  of  reprints 
of  works  in  all  divisions  of  literature  which  ranked  as 
classics,  had  been  begun  by  Bohn  about  1850.  They 
had  been  shaped  with  good  editorial  judgment  and  had 
grown  to  be  a  great  business  property.  In  1913,  George 
Bell  &  Son,  whose  house  had  for  many  years  been  the 
owners  of  the  Bohn  Libraries,  secured  a  satisfactory 
success  for  a  reissue  of  the  famous  series  in  cheap  popular 
form.  The  idea  of  such  a  series  was  said  to  have  originated 
with  David  Bogue,  but  Bogue  lacked  either  the  capital  or 
the  persistency  to  carry  out  his  scheme  effectively,  and 
his  smaller  groups  of  volumes  were  soon  driven  out  of 
the  market  by  the  long  sets  of  his  rival  Bohn.  In  his 
eagerness  to  extend  his  libraries  and  to  include  in  his 
lists  not  merely  the  books  of  earlier  generations  that  had 
stood  the  test  of  time,  but  later  productions  which  would 
help  to  attract  readers,  Bohn  had  pushed  forward  his 
editorial  scheme  with  very  little  regard  to  the  interests 
or  the  comity  rights  of  his  fellow-publishers;  and  he  soon 


52    Some  London  Publishers  of  the  Sixties 

came  into  controversies  in  regard  to  his  right  to  utilize 
some  of  these  later  books.  One  of  the  most  important 
of  these  issues  came  up  in  connection  with  Bonn's  reprints 
of  the  earlier  works  of  Washington  Irving,  including 
the  Sketch  Book,  Columbus,  etc.  Murray  (John  the 
second)  and  Bentley  had  paid  Irving  satisfactory,  not 
to  say  liberal,  prices  for  the  right  to  produce  the  author- 
ized English  editions  of  these  books,  and  it  was  their 
understanding  that  Irving,  while  an  American  citizen, 
had,  under  the  conditions  of  the  English  statute,  secured 
through  residence  in  England,  and  through  prior  publi- 
cation in  England,  a  protection  for  these  books.  Suits 
were  brought  by  Murray  and  Bentley,  but  Bohn  made 
a  stubborn  defence  through  delays  and  appeals  until  the 
patience  and  the  hopefulness  of  the  authorized  publishers 
was  finally  exhausted.  A  compromise  was  arrived  at 
under  which  Bohn  retained  the  right  to  continue  to  print 
the  books  in  the  libraries.  The  later  decisions  of  the 
English  courts  made  clear,  however,  that  Murray's  con- 
tention was  well  founded,  and  that  if  he  had  persisted 
with  his  case,  the  Bohn  editions  would  have  been  sup- 
pressed or  satisfactorily  paid  for. 

At  the  time  I  met  Bohn,  he  was  an  old  man,  and  had 
practically  retired  from  the  publishing  business.  He 
lived  in  a  house  at  Twickenham  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Pope's  villa  and  of  Walpole's  "Strawberry  Hill."  He 
had,  after  giving  up  active  work  in  the  publishing  office, 
interested  himself  in  collecting  porcelain  and  pottery. 
His  collections  were  at  this  time  considerable  enough  to 
form  quite  a  museum,  and  I  believe  they  had  very  con- 
siderable value.  I  dined  with  the  old  gentleman  in  com- 
pany with  three  or  four  other  guests,  and  was  interested  in 
noting  how  bad  the  manners  of  an  Englishman  were 
allowed  to  be  if  he  possessed  money  and  some  social  impor- 
tance. The  host  contradicted  his  guests  (not,  it  is  fair 


John  Murray  53 

to  say,  his  American  guest,  who  kept  quiet  and  observant) 
and  one  or  two  of  them  were  abused  so  abominably  as  the 
old  gentleman  took  his  third  or  fourth  glass  of  port  that  I 
was  surprised  that  they  were  willing  to  remain  at  the  table. 
He  was  full  of  his  own  opinions  and  brooked  no  contradic- 
tions or  questions.  It  is  fair  to  remember  in  thinking  of 
Bohn  that  he  was  hardly  to  be  accepted  as  typical  of  an 
English  gentleman,  or  even  as  an  English  commercial  gen- 
tleman. He  had  been  born  in  Germany,  and  while  a 
well-read  man,  possessing  some  scholarly  attainments,  he 
had  taken  his  training  comparatively  late  in  life. 

John  Murray.  The  dean  of  the  English  book  trade  in 
1866  was  unquestionably  John  Murray,  John  the  third, 
son  of  Byron's  Murray.  He  was  a  tall,  courtly  gentleman 
such  as  one  describes  as  belonging  to  the  "old  school." 
He  expressed  an  interest,  although  it  seemed  to  me  rather 
a  far-off  and  formal  interest,  in  the  possibilities  of  reviv- 
ing the  American  book-trade.  Mr.  Murray,  like  Richard 
Bentley,  belonged  to  the  Tory  group  of  British  opinion, 
and  was  one  of  those  who  had  been  surprised  (if  not  dis- 
appointed) that  the  North  had  been  able  to  bring  the  war 
to  a  satisfactory  conclusion.  In  the  matter  of  frank  criti- 
cism of  Northern  procedure,  he  was,  however,  more 
considerate  of  the  feelings  of  his  American  guest  than  had 
been  his  neighbour  Bentley. 

I  was  pleasantly  received  in  the  picturesque  office  in 
Albemarle  Street  by  my  father's  old-time  friend  and  cor- 
respondent. After  the  establishment  in  1849  of  his 
business  in  New  York,  my  father  had  been  interested  in 
dividing  with  the  Murray  house  a  number  of  important 
publications,  such  as  the  works  of  Sir  Henry  Layard,  the 
writings  of  George  Borrow,  etc.  Sixty-eight  years  later, 
my  firm  is  still  continuing,  in  co-operation  with  the  later 
generation  of  Murray,  the  publication  of  the  works  of 
George  Borrow. 


54    Some  London  Publishers  of  the  Sixties 

The  general  manager  of  the  Murray  house  was  at  that 
time  Mr.  Cooke.  Cooke  had  grown  up  with  the  house, 
and  was,  I  was  told,  a  very  valuable  man  for  the  responsi- 
bilities entrusted  to  him.  He  was  a  Tory  and  not  one 
of  the  courtly  kind;  his  opinions  and  his  prejudices  struck 
me  as  belonging  to  an  earlier  century.  He  evidently 
found  it  difficult  to  divest  himself  of  the  feeling  that 
Americans  were-  Colonials,  and  that  they  ought  not  to 
speak  until  they  were  spoken  to.  There  seemed  to  me 
to  be  a  certain  inconsequence  in  the  manner  in  which  in 
one  breath  he  attributed  certain  outrages  against  negroes 
in  Arkansas  and  Texas  to  the  barbarism  of  my  American 
community,  and  in  the  next  expressed  his  honest  regret 
that  "the  gentlemen  of  the  South"  had  in  their  gallant 
struggle  for  liberty  been  overcome  by  "the  mechanics 
of  the  North." 

At  this  time  of  writing,  the  direction  of  the  business  of 
the  house  is  in  the  hands  of  John  the  fourth,  who  is,  how- 
ever, fortunate  in  having  already  available  for  co-opera- 
tion in  the  management  of  affairs,  John  the  fifth. 

George  Bell.  Another  of  the  publishers  of  the  old 
school  with  whom  I  came  into  personal  relations  was 
George  Bell.  I  found  him  a  man  rather  of  the  John 
Murray  type,  a  gentleman  in  manner  and  method,  with  a 
high  standard  of  business  policy  and  of  business  action. 
A  conservative  in  politics,  he  evidently  had  no  personal 
sympathy  with  the  principles  represented  by  the  re-estab- 
lished western  Republic.  While  never  forgetful  of  his 
courtesy  to  his  guest,  he  was  pretty  sharp  in  his  animad- 
versions of  American  methods.  He  was  inclined  to  the 
belief  that  the  disappearance  of  the  United  States  would 
have  been  no  misfortune  to  the  world.  He  was  bitter, 
and  not  without  ground,  at  the  practice  of  the  American 
reprinters  who  were  appropriating  English  publications, 
and  he  was  very  incredulous  when  I  pointed  out  that  the 


Sampson  Low  55 

reprinters  in  England  showed  no  more  regard  than  their 
Anerican  competitors  for  the  rights  of  transatlantic 
authors.  Knowing  that  the  record  of  his  own  firm  was 
in  this  respect  -unassailable,  he  was  unwilling  to  admit 
that  any  such  misdoings  could  be  charged  against  members 
of  the  publishing  circle  of  England. 

Sampson  Low.  Sampson  Low,  head  of  the  firm  of 
Low,  Son  &  Marston,  had  had  business  relations  with  my 
father  during  the  latter's  sojourn  in  London  and  was  very 
ready  to  accord  a  friendly  reception  to  my  father's  son. 
I  recall  that  it  occurred  to  Mr.  Low  (and  to  him  alone 
among  the  London  publishers  whom  I  met)  that  office 
accommodation  might  prove  a  convenience  for  the  young 
Yankee  during  his  sojourn  in  London,  and  a  desk  was 
given  to  me  in  one  of  the  offices  of  the  firm.  It  was  a 
very  simple  courtesy,  but  it  led  to  business  of  some  con- 
tinued importance.  For  a  number  of  years  thereafter, 
we  utilized  Low's  house  as  a  general  agency  for  the  pur- 
chase of  miscellaneous  stock,  while  we  were  interested 
also  in  giving  early  and  favourable  consideration  to  such 
of  Low's  publications  as  seemed  likely  to  be  suitable  for 
the  American  market.  Like  most  of  the  older  publishers 
of  London,  Low  belonged  to  the  Tories,  and  I  found  him 
quite  naive  in  his  expression  of  surprise,  and  I  thought 
almost  of  disappointment,  that  the  great  Republic  had 
succeeded  in  sustaining  itself  through  the  severe  shock 
of  the  Civil  War.  There  was  also  a  pleasant  little  feeling 
of  astonishment  that  any  American,  or  at  least  any  Ameri- 
can from  the  North,  should  be  found  suited  for  English 
social  circles  and  deserving  of  trust  in  business  relations. 
Our  firm  secured  in  fact  close  business  relations  with 
London  that  involved  a  larger  measure  of  confidence  than 
was  readily  given  to  some  of  our  American  competitors, 
some  of  whom  represented  larger  capital  and  whose  custom 
might  possibly  have  proved  more  profitable,  and  this 


56    Some  London  Publishers  of  the  Sixties 

advantage  came  to  us  simply  on  the  ground  that  my  father 
had  actually  himself  been  for  a  term  of  years  a  resident 
of  England.  There  was  the  beautiful  belief  that  he  must 
in  this  manner  have  secured  a  certain  standard  of  civiliza- 
tion which  would  not  be  likely  to  be  possessed  by  a  born 
Yankee  who  had  had  no  such  advantages.  By  the  time, 
some  seven  or  eight  years  later,  when  I  was  called  upon 
to  take  control  of  the  firm,  I  had,  through  personal  inter- 
views and  continued  correspondence,  established  with 
leading  publishers,  with  a  number  of  the  scholars  of  the 
universities,  and  with  other  literary  workers,  personal 
relations  that  were  in  the  years  to  come  to  prove  of  in- 
creasing importance  for  the  House. 

Sidney  Williams.  Among  the  publishers  whom  I  came 
to  know  during  these  earlier  visits  and  with  whom  friendly 
relations  continued  until  his  death  twenty  years  later, 
was  Sidney  Williams,  head  of  the  firm  of  Williams  & 
Norgate.  Mr.  Williams  was  a  man  of  my  father's  genera- 
tion whose  life  had  been  spent  in  the  book  trade.  His 
early  training  was  secured  in  Leipsic  and  in  Hamburg, 
and  he  had  retained  both  in  business  and  in  personal 
associations  close  relations  with  Germany.  Partly  be- 
cause of  these  German  influences,  but  chiefly  on  the  ground 
of  his  natural  sturdiness  and  independence  of  character 
and  of  judgment,  my  friend's  views  of  matters  theological 
were  characterized  by  what  I  should  call  a  wholesome  and 
reverent  heresy.  He  had  a  full  measure  of  respect  for 
the  Church  of  England  as  an  institution,  and  he  was 
always  a  liberal  subscriber  to  the  funds  of  his  Parish 
Church  (his  home  was  at  that  time  at  Bickley  in  Kent), 
but  he  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  give  personal  attend- 
ance in  the  family  pew  which  he  retained  as  a  proper 
obligation  for  a  householder  in  the  Parish.  The  publish- 
ing relations  of  Mr.  Williams  were  naturally  influenced 
by  his  independent  views  and  his  imprint  came  to  be 


Mr.  W.  57 

associated  with  the  books  of  a  number  of  writers  who, 
while  giving  thoughtful  and  reverent  study  to  the  prob- 
lems of  the  relations  of  man  with  his  universe,  were  not 
disposed  to  accept  the  traditional  or  so-called  "orthodox" 
views.  Mr.  Williams  was  a  man  of  wide  reading  and  his 
opinions  were  always  of  interest.  He  combined  intellec- 
tual force  with  sweetness  of  nature.  I  found  him  a 
charming  host. 

Among  the  authors  of  the  Williams  firm  who  became 
personal  friends  of  its  founder  was  Herbert  Spencer. 
Spencer's  first  publication  failed  for  some  time  to  attract 
any  general  attention,  and  the  author  and  his  publishers 
had  to  wait  for  a  number  of  years  before  the  sales  of  che 
book  proved  to  be  sufficient  to  pay  the  printer's  bills  or 
to  give  evidence  that  the  author's  conclusions  were  secur- 
ing any  general  acceptance.  During  the  past  forty  years, 
the  list  of  the  publications  of  Williams  &  Norgate  has 
included  many  works  representing  scientific  research, 
and  the  results  of  investigations  of  thinking  men  who 
refused  to  permit  their  conclusions  to  be  trammelled  by 
traditionary  beliefs.  The  firm  has  made  itself  a  con- 
necting link  between  the  liberal  scholarship  of  Germany 
and  the  thinking  community  of  Great  Britain. 

My  relations,  both  personal  and  business,  begun  in 
the  early  seventies  with  Sidney  Williams,  have  continued 
through  the  years  since  with  his  son  and  successor  Geoffrey. 

Mr.  W.  On  the  ground  of  my  lack  of  business  experi- 
ence, my  father  did  not  expect  that  in  my  first  trip  to 
England,  I  should  assume  responsibility  concerning  in- 
vestments in  any  large  undertakings.  I  was  instructed, 
however,  to  make  myself  known  in  the  several  publishing 
offices,  and  to  give  due  consideration  to  such  suggestions 
as  might  be  submitted  in  regard  to  books  supposed  to  be 
suited  for  the  American  market.  I  was  turning  over  one 
day  in  the  office  of  Mr.  W.,  one  of  my  father's  correspond- 


58    Some  London  Publishers  of  the  Sixties 

ents,  the  proof  sheets  of  a  forthcoming  work  of  current 
reference,  and  I  was  endeavouring,  while  concealing  my 
general  ignorance,  to  secure  some  impression  as  to  the 
probable  value  of  the  work  for  American  readers.  I  was 
fortunate  enough  to  light  upon  an  entry  regarding  an 
event  in  our  Civil  War  of  which  I  had  personal  knowledge. 
The  writer  of  the  paragraph  had  undertaken  to  describe 
the  bombardment  by  the  Yankee  fleet  of  the  Confederate 
post  of  Front  Royal  in  Virginia.  I  had  had  occasion  to 
march  around  and  through  Front  Royal  and  I  knew  that 
the  place  was  two  or  three  hundred  miles  from  tide  water. 
I  said,  "Mr.  W.  there  is  a  mistake  in  one  entry  in  these 
sheets.  Your  contributor  says  that  the  American  fleet 
carried  on  a  bombardment  of  a  place  which  is  two  hundred 
miles  inland."  "Oh,  Mr.  Putnam,"  said  Mr.  W.  con- 
descendingly, "this  book  has  been  prepared  by  English 
scholars  of  first  authority.  You  have  confused  your 
memory  in  some  manner." 

I  held  to  my  judgment,  however,  and  on  the  strength 
of  the  one  detail  that  I  had  been  able  to  check,  I  decided, 
not  a  little  to  Mr.  W.'s  annoyance,  to  decline  his  proposi- 
tion to  take  over  for  the  States  a  portion  of  the  edition 
of  the  work.  My  judgment,  however  hastily  arrived  at, 
proved  to  have  been  well  founded,  for  the  book  was  never 
accepted  as  a  work  of  authority.  My  father  commended  my 
method  of  testing,  by  one  detail  of  which  I  had  first-hand 
knowledge,  material  that  I  was  not  competent  to  judge. 

I  found  it  necessary  to  continue  my  father's  routine  of 
annual  visits  to  London.  The  business  of  the  London 
office  naturally  called  for  some  personal  supervision  and 
checking  off,  while  it  was  important  for  us  on  every  ground, 
as  we  had  been  the  first  American  publishers  to  invade 
England,  to  retain  the  prestige  of  the  English  connection 
and  to  widen  the  range  of  our  business  interests. 

Re-establishment  of  London  House. — A  year  or  two 


Re-Establishment  of  London  House      59 

after  my  sojourn  in  London  in  1866,  we  found  it  practic- 
able to  re-establish  the  branch  House  in  London,  and  in 
this  way  to  develop  our  direct  relations  with  English 
authors  and  with  the  English  book-buying  public.  One 
may  admit  that  in  1870  (as  is  true  forty  odd  years  later), 
it  was  not  easy  to  interest  any  large  number  of  British 
readers  in  the  productions  of  American  authors.  The 
English  publishers  took  the  ground  that  the  books  pro- 
duced by  English  authors  were  quite  sufficient  to  meet  any 
possible  demand  on  the  part  of  the  English  reading  pub- 
lic, and  that  there  was  no  place  and  no  necessity  for 
an  incursion  of  American  books.  The  English  reviewers 
were,  and  possibly  still  are,  less  ready  to  give  favourable 
attention  to  literature  originating  on  the  western  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  American  reviewers  and  readers  have  al- 
ways been  more  willing  to  give  a  hospitable  reception  to 
the  literature  of  Great  Britain  than  it  has  been  easy  to 
secure  in  Britain  for  books  emanating  from  the  States. 
This  is  partly  due,  of  course,  to  the  tradition  of  earlier 
times  when  the  Colonies,  and  later  the  States,  were  almost 
entirely  dependent  upon  England  for  their  literature,  but 
it  may  also  fairly  be  claimed  that  the  American  has  from 
the  outset  been  wider  and  more  cosmopolitan  in  his  range 
of  interests  and  more  ready  to  give  consideration  to 
thoughts,  ideas,  and  teachings  which  come  into  shape 
outside  of  his  home  country. 

During  the  past  twenty  years,  there  has,  however,  been 
a  decided  increase  in  the  readiness  of  English  readers  to 
give  attention  to  American  literature.  The  best  of  the 
American  novelists — together  with  some  of  those  who 
are  not  properly  to  be  described  as  "best," — have  found 
favour  with  English  readers,  and  it  is  now  recognized  in 
university  centres  and  among  cultivated  people  that 
Americans  are  able  to  produce  works  of  value  and  of 
authority  in  all  the  divisions  of  literature. 


CHAPTER  IV 

G.  F.   Putnam's  Sons 

The  Death  of  my  Father.  In  December,  1872,  came 
the  sudden  death  of  my  father,  which  left  upon  myself 
and  my  younger  brother  the  responsibility  for  the  manage- 
ment of  the  publishing  concern.  My  father  was  at  the 
time  but  fifty-eight  years  of  age,  and  he  ought  to  have 
been  spared  for  a  longer  term  of  service  for  his  own  home 
circle  and  for  the  community  in  which  he  had  made  for 
himself  an  honourable  place.  The  nature  of  his  service 
I  have  attempted  to  estimate  in  an  earlier  volume. 

I  could  not  but  feel  that  my  own  experience  had  been 
too  limited  to  qualify  me  properly  for  my  new  responsi- 
bilities. I  had  had  no  business  training  excepting  what 
could  be  secured  in  the  work  of  a  regiment  in  active  service 
and  what  had  come  to  me  during  the  six  years  since  the 
war.  My  father  had  creative  capacity  and  literary  taste, 
and  he  had  always  been  fortunate  in  his  relations  with  his 
authors,  nearly  all  of  whom  became  his  personal  friends. 
He  had  no  good  knowledge,  however,  of  the  details  of  the 
commercial  side  of  a  publishing  business,  and  it  had  been 
necessary  for  me  in  taking  hold  with  him  as  a  junior  part- 
ner to  instruct  myself  in  order  that  I  might  be  in  a  position 
to  check  off  the  work  of  subordinates  and  to  free  my 
father,  as  far  as  possible,  from  the  details  of  office  work. 

From  my  earliest  boyhood,  my  relations  with  my  father 

60 


Some  Business  Undertakings  61 

had  been  close.  He  was  by  nature  keenly  sympathetic, 
and  I  could  always  feel  assured  without  spoken  words  that 
he  understood  what  I  had  at  heart  and  that  he  had  made 
my  hopes  and  aims  his  own.  I  know  that  during  the 
six  years  of  our  working  together,  with  the  many  business 
problems  and  perplexities,  I  was  on  my  part,  as  I  arrived 
at  a  fuller  understanding  of  his  high  purposes  and  of  his 
simple-hearted  straightforward  standard  of  action,  more 
than  ready  to  identify  myself  with  his  hopes  and  wishes. 
It  is  to  me  a  great  satisfaction  to  remember  that  the  last 
six  years  of  close  business  and  personal  association  passed 
without  a  jar  or  a  friction.  If  there  had  been  any  such 
instances,  the  fault  must  have  rested  with  myself,  for 
there  was  really  no  merit  in  working  harmoniously  with 
a  partner  of  his  temperament. 

In  the  year  succeeding  my  father's  death  came  the  panic 
of  1873.  It  is  one  of  the  difficulties  of  modern  business 
that  it  can  be  affected  so  seriously  by  conditions  and  ac- 
tions which  are  entirely  out  of  the  control  of  business 
managers.  Through  speculative  investments  in  Buenos 
Aires,  there  came  disaster  to  a  great  English  banking 
house,  with  the  result  that  American  securities  were 
thrown  upon  the  market  in  New  York.  The  amount  was 
beyond  the  power  of  absorption  of  American  investors, 
which  meant  a  serious  fall  in  the  value  of  all  securities, 
and  a  calling  of  loans,  and  brought  failure  to  many  and 
anxiety  to  all.  Our  young  firm,  or  firm  of  youngsters, 
worried  through  the  storm,  and  I  have  reason  now  to  be 
appreciative  of  the  friendly  courtesy  extended  to  us  at  the 
time  by  our  bankers  and  other  friends.  We  were  able, 
morever,  gradually  to  strengthen  our  credit  relations  with 
the  banks,  while  one  or  two  of  the  older  friends  and  one 
or  two  later  friends  of  my  own  were  ready  in  time  of  need 
to  render  aid. 

Some  Business  Undertakings.     In  1874,   under  the 


62  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

initiative  and  enterprise  of  my  brother  Bishop,  the 
printing  office  was  established,  which  in  the  later  years 
was  developed  first  into  a  manufacturing  department 
and  then  into  a  separate  manufacturing  concern  organ- 
ized as  The  Knickerbocker  Press,  in  which  we  were  able 
to  carry  on  all  the  processes  required  for  the  making  of 
books.  In  this  same  year,  1874,  we  secured  more  spa- 
cious quarters  for  the  business  at  182  Fifth  Avenue, 
which  gave  us  facilities  for  widening  out  the  range 
and  the  productiveness  of  the  retail  business.  The  top 
floors  of  the  same  building  were  utilized  for  our  earlier 
book  manufacturing  operations.  It  came  to  pass,  there- 
fore, that  the  complete  career  of  certain  of  our  books 
was  carried  on  within  the  building  itself,  the  volume 
being  put  into  type,  printed  and  bound  and  delivered 
through  the  publishing  office  to  the  retail  counter  below 
for  sale  to  the  consumer.  In  one  case  at  least,  the  author's 
work  on  the  book  was  completed  within  the  building,  so 
that  the  same  premises  saw  its  birth  and  the  years  of  its 
active  life.  There  was,  of  course,  a  satisfactory  advantage 
in  securing  from  our  publications  the  manufacturing 
profit  on  the  one  hand  and  the  retail  commission  on  the 
other.  A  year  or  two  later,  in  connection  with  the  re- 
quirements of  the  several  divisions  of  the  business,  we  took 
premises,  as  tenants  of  Arnold  &  Constable,  of  the  build- 
ing at  27  and  29  West  Twenty-Third  Street,  where  the 
concern  remained  for  thirty  years.  In  the  early  nineties, 
the  book  manufacturing  undertakings  had  developed  into 
sufficient  proportions  to  warrant  their  being  carried  on  in 
a  separate  establishment,  and  my  brother  constructed  for 
the  work  of  The  Knickerbocker  Press  a  building,  or  series 
of  buildings,  at  New  Rochelle. 

Father  Hyacinths  and  Father  Tyrrell.  Among  the 
transatlantic  authors  who  came  into  the  office  in  the  late 
sixties  was  Father  Hyacinthe,  who  would,  I  suppose,  be 


Father  Hyacinthe  and  Father  Tyrrell     63 

described  as  one  of  the  early  modernists.  Hyacinthe  had 
come  under  the  censure  of  the  Church  authorities  for 
preaching  and  for  writing  which  was  characterized  as 
heretical.  At  the  time  of  his  landing  in  New  York,  I 
judge  that  he  had  not  finally  concluded  that  it  would  be 
necessary  for  him  to  break  with  the  Church.  He  seems 
to  have  held  the  same  hopefulness  that  some  years  later 
came  to  Bellinger  as  to  the  possibility  of  widening  the 
intellectual  standard  of  the  Church  Universal,  so  that  it 
could  frankly  retain  among  its  adherents  the  faithful 
representing  various  phases  of  belief.  Hyacinthe  was, 
like  Dollinger  and  his  associates  some  years  later,  fighting 
for  the  right  of  a  man  to  think  and  to  work  out  convic- 
tions irrespective  of  the  trammels  of  the  authority  of  Rome. 
Both  men  wanted  to  bring  the  Church  abreast  with  mod- 
ern thought,  and  both  men  were  reverent  Christians  and 
were  earnestly  desirous  that  the  hold  of  Christianity  over 
mankind  should  be  strengthened,  and  that  the  principles 
of  Christianity  should  guide  the  work  of  the  world.  Both 
men  felt  that  narrowness  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  of 
Rome  would  drive  out  of  the  fold  of  the  Church  the  able 
thinkers  who  were  also  honest  thinkers,  and  would  leave 
the  Church  under  the  control  of  men  of  smaller  intellec- 
tual power,  or  of  those  who  had  intellectual  force  but 
who  lacked  integrity  of  conscience  to  hold  or  to  maintain 
individual  convictions.  Forty  years  later,  I  came  into 
personal  relations  with  another  faithful  son  of  the  church, 
an  earnest  Christian  who  had  by  honest  thinking  brought 
himself  within  the  pale  of  heresy,  Father  Tyrrell.  It  was 
impossible  for  Father  Tyrrell,  even  after  his  excommuni- 
cation, to  believe  that  he  had  been  put  out  of  the  Church. 
He  took  the  ground  that  the  Holy  Father  had  been  badly 
advised  and  was  not  in  a  position  to  realize  the  honesty 
of  purpose  of  the  so-called  modernists.  I  found  Tyrrell 
in  a  little  attic  not  far  from  the  noise  of  Clapham  June- 


64  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

tion  Station.  In  being  put  out  of  the  Church,  he  had,  of 
course,  lost  all  opportunity  of  employment  even  as  a 
teacher.  He  would  have  found  serious  difficulty  in  secur- 
ing even  his  daily  bread  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  friendly 
liberality  of  his  publishers,  the  Longmans.  I  could  not 
but  be  impressed  at  the  pathos  of  the  man's  position. 
Earnestly  desiring  to  work  for  Christianity,  believing 
that  the  Lord  had  selected  the  Church  Universal  for  the 
maintenance  and  propagation  of  the  Christian  faith,  he 
found  himself  under  the  condemnation  not  only  of  his 
own  Jesuit  order,  but  of  all  the  authority  of  the  Church. 
He  translated,  at  my  instance,  a  little  volume  written 
by  some  modernist  priests  of  Italy.  These  men  were 
continuing  their  functions  and  their  names  could,  there- 
fore, not  be  brought  into  print.  Tyrrell  wrote  the  intro- 
duction and  took  the  responsibility  for  the  validity  of  the 
utterances  and  for  the  fact  that  these  came  from  eccle- 
siastics who  were  still  carrying  on  their  work  in  Italy. 
The  volume  was  to  me  a  most  pathetic  expression  of 
faith  in  the  Lord  and  of  doubt  of  the  wisdom  of  him  who 
believed  himself  to  be  the  Lord's  vicegerent  on  earth. 
Is  the  Church  to  class  these  earnest  priests  with  the 
foolish  or  the  dishonest?  Is  it  the  Lord's  intention 
that  the  thinking  powers  that  he  has  given  to  men  are 
not  to  be  used  honestly,  that  is  to  say  in  accord  with  their 
own  individual  convictions?  Shall  all  the  expansion  of 
knowledge  and  of  intellectual  life  be  pushed  out  of  the 
Church  and  kept  out  of  the  Church  as  was  the  new  wisdom 
in  regard  to  the  organization  of  the  solar  system  and  the 
universe  kept  out  of  the  Church  in  the  time  of  Coperni- 
cus? At  this  time  of  writing,  the  modernists  have  again 
been  made  dumb,  suppressed,  or,  as  far  as  identified, 
driven  out  of  the  Church.  No  one  can  prophesy  what  is 
to  be  the  continued  influence  of  the  great  Church  Uni- 
versal whose  magnificent  organization  and  miraculous 


The  "  Battle  of  Dorking  "  65 

vitality  ought,  of  course,  to  be  made  of  the  largest  service 
through  the  generations  to  come,  to  all  classes  of  men. 

The  Goodale  Sisters.  One  of  the  books  of  those  earlier 
years  which  made  an  unexpected  success  was  a  little 
volume  of  poems  by  the  two  daughters  of  a  Massachusetts 
farmer,  Elaine  and  Dora  Goodale.  The  girls  were  at 
the  time  still  but  children,  but  had  amused  themselves 
in  writing  verses  and  losing  them  and  rinding  them  in 
hay  stacks  and  chicken  coops;  the  appreciative  mother 
finally  got  together  the  scraps  of  paper,  and  a  friendly 
editor  who  recognized  their  literary  quality  brought  them 
to  us.  The  volume,  Apple  Blossoms,  secured  in  the  first 
year  of  its  sale  a  return  for  the  little  authors  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars,  and  as  there  had  never  been  any  such  money 
in  the  farmhouse  before,  there  was,  naturally,  great 
rejoicing. 

The  "  Battle  of  Dorking."  The  publishing  undertakings 
of  the  new  firm  of  G.  P.  Putnam  &  Son  during  the  years 
immediately  succeeding  the  war  have  been  referred  to  in 
the  Memoir  of  my  father.  Writing  in  1915,  I  may  recall 
among  other  of  the  books  secured  from  Great  Britain 
that  clever  story,  which  was  intended  to  be  a  sermon 
rather  than  a  romance,  the  Battle  of  Dorking,  by  Sir 
George  Chesney.  The  story  was  first  published  anony- 
mously in  Blackwood's,  but  its  authorship  was  later 
acknowledged  by  Chesney,  who,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
was  at  the  time  chief  of  staff  in  the  British  army. 
The  Battle  of  Dorking  was  the  precursor  of  a  long  series 
of  monographs  and  stories  no  one  of  which  came  any- 
where near  to  Chesney's  sketch  in  literary  power  or  in  mil- 
itary importance.  The  narrative  is  told  in  the  first  person 
with  a  vividness  and  power  of  presentation  that  recall  the 
methods  of  Defoe.  Its  purpose  was  purely  that  of  alarm- 
ing the  people  of  England  to  what  Chesney  believed  to  be 
the  practically  defenceless  condition  of  the  kingdom.  It 


66  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

was  Chesney's  belief  that  a  single  German  army  corps, 
once  brought  safely  across  the  North  Sea,  would  have 
little  difficulty  in  making  its  way  through  the  country  and 
in  taking  possession  of  London.  There  was,  of  course, 
in  the  seventies  no  doubt  as  to  the  naval  preponderance 
of  Great  Britain.  The  fleet  of  Germany  was  practically 
non-existent  and  the  present  great  naval  depot  at  Kiel 
was  only  a  dream  of  the  future.  Chesney  had  imagined 
the  possibility,  as  a  result  of  a  very  sudden  declaration  of 
war,  of  slipping  a  fleet  of  transports  across  from  Hamburg, 
Bremen,  and  Lubeck,  which  should  elude  the  watchfulness 
of  the  British  home  fleet.  What  he  wanted  particularly 
to  emphasize,  however,  was  not  naval  preparation,  which 
was,  he  assumed,  in  good  hands,  but  the  necessity  of  some 
better  organization  of  the  home  territorial  forces.  The 
institution  of  the  system  of  volunteers  was  undoubtedly 
chiefly  due  to  the  awakening  of  public  opinion  brought 
about  by  Chesney's  brilliant  sketch. 

I  had  the  opportunity  years  later  of  going  over  with 
my  friend  Oswald  Crawfurd,  who  while  not  a  soldier 
was  the  son  of  a  general  and  had  a  keen  interest  in  military 
science,  the  battlefield  of  Dorking.  Crawfurd,  who  was 
then  consul  at  Oporto,  spent  some  months  of  each  year 
in  England  and  made  his  summer  home  in  Dorking.  I 
was  not  a  little  interested  in  tramping  over  the  Dorking 
region  with  the  book  in  my  hand,  to  find  how  closely 
Chesney  had  in  his  narrative  followed  the  topography. 
Each  move  made  by  the  German  army  up  to  the  time  of 
the  battle  was  that  which  was  necessitated  by  the  lay  of 
the  land,  while  every  detail  of  the  general  fighting  was 
connected  with  the  slopes  and  ridges  of  the  beautiful 
country  of  which  Box  Hill  is  the  highest  point. 

Before  this  volume  will  come  into  print,  the  present 
European  war  (the  war  of  German  aggression)  will  prob- 
ably have  been  decided.  I  venture  to  hazard  the  pre- 


Writings  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic   67 

diction,  however,  that  notwithstanding  the  aggressive 
force  of  submarines  and  of  Zeppelins,  the  existence  of 
which  could,  of  course,  not  have  been  imagined  in  the 
time  of  Chesney,  and  notwithstanding  the  magnificent 
organization  of  Germany's  fighting  machine,  it  would 
today  be  as  difficult  as  (Chesney  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding) I  believe  it  would  have  been  in  1869,  for 
a  German  invading  army  to  fight  its  way  to  London  with 
any  chance  of  ever  getting  back  to  Germany. 

In  1915,  we  have  found  ourselves  interested  in  bringing 
into  publication  through  our  London  House  a  story  by  a 
well-known  New  York  scientist,  J.  Bernard  Walker, 
entitled  America  Fatten.  I  have  referred  to  this  book 
as  a  "  new  Battle  of  Dorking"  Walker  points  out  that 
unless  Americans  are  prepared  to  take  active  measures 
for  the  protection  of  their  coasts,  the  United  States  is 
exposed  to  the  risk  of  invasion.  The  invader  against 
whose  possible  aggression  measures  of  defence  must  be 
shaped  is  the  same  aggressive  power  whose  plans  for 
Empire  were  thought  by  Sir  George  Chesney,  as  far  back 
as  1869,  to  be  dangerous  to  the  independence  of  England. 

The  Writings  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic.  In  1884, 
the  Putnam  firm  began  the  publication  of  the  series  of 
writings  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic  which  belong 
among  the  most  important  of  our  publications  and  which 
may  fairly  be  classed  among  the  great  publishing  under- 
takings of  the  century.  The  writings  of  Washington, 
edited  by  Jared  Sparks,  had  been  brought  into  print  early 
in  the  nineteenth  century  under  the  direction  of  Congress 
and  at  the  expense  of  the  national  government.  The 
writings  of  Hamilton,  edited  by  his  son  John  C.  Hamilton, 
had  been  published  in  the  early  thirties;  and  an  edition 
of  the  writings  of  Franklin,  edited  by  his  grandson,  William 
Temple  Franklin,  had,  in  an  incomplete  form,  been  issued 
early  in  the  century.  Each  of  these  editions  had,  how- 


68  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

ever,  been  sharply  criticized  for  lack  of  completeness  and 
particularly  for  inaccuracies  in  the  text.  Dr.  Sparks 
had  thought  it  proper,  in  putting  into  print  the  correspon- 
dence and  other  utterances  of  Washington,  to  revise  the 
English,  to  make  the  spelling  consistent,  and  to  eliminate 
expressions  which  did  not  seem  to  him  (Sparks)  in  accord 
with  the  dignity  and  character  of  the  Father  of  his  country. 
The  filial  respect  of  Mr.  J.  C.  Hamilton  had  caused  him 
so  to  shape  the  memoirs  and  the  writings  of  the  illustrious 
Father  as  to  omit  reference  to  any  matters  which  might 
tend  to  impair  the  respect  for  Hamilton  on  the  part  of 
later  generations.  William  Temple  Franklin,  who  at  the 
time  of  his  editorial  work  was  an  officeholder  under  the 
British  government,  had  taken  pains,  in  preparing  for 
the  press  the  writings  of  his  active-minded  grandfather, 
to  eliminate  as  far  as  practicable  all  statements  and  ex- 
pressions which  might  cause  annoyance  to  English  author- 
ities or  arouse  antagonism  on  the  part  of  the  English 
public. 

Our  series  was  begun  with  the  publication  in  1885  of 
the  set  of  Hamilton's  works  which  was  edited,  and  very 
successfully  edited,  by  Henry  Cabot  Lodge.  The  Feder- 
alist as  shaped  for  this  set  was  later  issued  separately.  We 
prepared  as  a  frontispiece  for  the  set  a  reproduction 
in  photogravure  of  the  Trumbull  portrait  of  Hamilton 
which  was  at  that  time  in  the  possession  of  Lodge's 
mother.  I  remember  a  visit  to  my  office,  sometime  in 
1885,  of  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Jr.  We  had  at  that 
time  business  relations  with  Mr.  Adams  in  connection 
with  the  publication  of  a  couple  of  volumes  on  railroad 
management,  and  it  was,  I  believe,  in  part  at  least  the 
reputation  that  came  to  him  through  these  volumes  for 
practical  knowledge  of  railroad  affairs  that  secured  for 
him  later  the  presidency  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad. 
I  had  hanging  in  the  office  at  the  time  a  proof  of  the  photo- 


Writings  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic   69 

gravure  of  the  beautiful  Hamilton  portrait.  As  Adams 
came  to  my  desk,  he  stopped  to  look  at  the  print  and  I 
made  some  remark  about  the  beauty  of  the  face.  "It's 
not  a  bad  head,  Mr.  Putnam,  but  look  at  that  damned 
inquisitive  nose  ready  to  poke  itself  into  business  with 
which  it  has  no  proper  concern."  I  then  remembered  the 
old-time  bitterness  between  John  Adams  and  Alexander 
Hamilton,  and  realized  that  in  the  Adams  family  an- 
tagonisms and  prejudices  were  hereditary. 

I  had  occasion  some  years  later,  when  the  international 
copyright  fight  was  in  train,  to  secure  help  from  Mr. 
Adams,  who  was  one  of  the  vice-presidents  of  the  Inter- 
national Copyright  League,  to  head  off  opposition  to 
the  copyright  bill  on  the  part  of  Moorfield  Storey,  a  well- 
known  leader  of  the  Boston  Bar.  I  found  on  one  of  my 
visits  to  Washington  in  behalf  of  the  pending  bill,  that 
Storey  was  making  arguments  against  the  bill  with  mem- 
bers of  the  House  and  Senate  committees.  His  opposi- 
tion was,  it  seems,  based  upon  a  desire  to  be  of  service  to 
two  old  ladies,  the  daughters  of  Littell,  who,  a  number 
of  years  back,  had  founded  LittdVs  Living  Age.  The 
Living  Age  was  edited  with  scissors,  being  made  up  en- 
tirely from  clippings  from  transatlantic  and  principally 
from  English  periodicals.  Littell  was  dead,  but  his  two 
daughters,  who  also  understood  the  use  of  scissors,  were 
getting  a  modest  income  out  of  the  publication  of  the 
little  magazine.  Storey  had  got  the  idea  into  his  head 
that  an  international  copyright  would  prevent  the  con- 
tinued publication  of  the  Living  Age  and  would  take  away 
the  income  of  these  old  ladies,  and,  purely  on  the  ground 
of  friendly  interest,  he  had  come  to  Washington  to  defend 
their  livelihood.  I  wrote  to  Adams,  as  president  of  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad  and  as  vice-president  of  the  Inter- 
national Copyright  League,  asking  that  he  would  have 
the  counsel  of  the  railroad  recalled  to  his  duties  in  Boston. 


70  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

I  succeeded  finally  also  in  securing  an  interview  with 
Storey  himself  and  in  making  clear  that  his  fears  on  behalf 
of  the  old  ladies  were  not  justified.  I  took  the  ground 
in  the  first  place  that  no  individual  business  ought  to 
be  permitted  to  stand  in  the  way  of  a  measure  which 
involved  national  policy  and  the  great  interests  of  national 
literature.  I  said  further,  that  the  publishers  and  other 
members  of  the  copyright  league  would  be  quite  ready 
to  guarantee  to  the  two  old  ladies  the  income  (about 
$5000  as  Mr.  Storey  had  reported)  that  they  were  secur- 
ing from  their  magazine  in  case  their  business  should  in 
any  way  be  interfered  with  by  our  copyright  undertaking. 
I  pointed  out,  finally,  however,  that  the  copyright  bill  as 
worded  was  not  going  to  cause  any  interference  whatso- 
ever with  the  publication  of  LittelVs  Living  Age.  Under 
the  provisions  which  had  been  inserted  in  the  law  by  the 
typographical  unions  and  the  other  bodies  interested  in 
the  manufacturing  side  of  book  production,  no  work  could 
secure  American  copyright  that  had  not  been  "brought 
into  print"  within  the  territory  of  the  United  States. 
The  magazines  and  papers  from  which  the  Living  Age 
was  made  were  not,  and  could  not  be,  brought  into  print 
in  the  United  States  and  their  material,  therefore,  could 
not  secure  copyright  protection.  There  was,  therefore, 
nothing  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the  editorial  scissors.  Here 
was  a  leading  lawyer  of  the  Boston  Bar  who,  at  some  sacri- 
fice of  valuable  time,  had  come  to  Washington  with  the 
chivalrous  purpose  of  helping  a  couple  of  old  ladies,  with- 
out having  taken  the  trouble  to  read  the  text  of  the  bill 
the  enactment  of  which  he  was  opposing. 

Among  the  Senators  who  were,  under  the  influence  of 
Storey,  prepared  to  oppose  the  bill  was  Justin  S.  Morrill 
of  Vermont,  who  was  I  believe  at  that  time  the  senior 
member  of  the  Senate.  In  applying  to  Mr.  Morrill  for 
his  support  of  the  bill,  I  said  that  I  felt  every  confidence 


Writings  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic  71 

that  a  great  New  England  leader  whose  standard  of  states- 
manship had  been  of  the  highest,  would  be  interested  in  a 
measure  which  had  for  its  purpose  the  defence  of  national 
honour  and  the  development  of  national  literature.  "But, 
Mr.  Putnam,"  said  Morrill,  "this  bill  of  yours  is  going  to 
interfere  with  the  publication  of  LittelVs  Living  Age.  I 
and  my  father  before  me  have  been  taking  in  'Littell' 
for  half  a  century  or  more,  and  I  understand  from  Mr. 
Storey  that  two  old  ladies  are  dependent  upon  the  maga- 
zine for  their  livelihood."  "Mr.  Senator,"  I  replied, 
"have  you  read  the  bill  against  which  your  opposition 
has  been  quoted?"  The  old  gentleman  replied  a  little 
testily:  "Mr.  Putnam,  I  am  a  legislator  not  without  expe- 
rience and  I  am  not  accustomed  to  give  a  definite  opinion 
about  matters  that  I  have  not  mastered."  "Permit  me 
to  point  out  to  you,  Mr.  Senator,"  I  said,  "that  in  this 
instance  you  have  acted  under  a  misapprehension."  I 
then  read  to  him  the  provisions  of  the  bill  that  had  to  do 
with  the  matter  in  question  and  pointed  out  that  LittelVs 
Living  Age  and  other  "scissors  periodicals"  were  not  going 
to  be  interfered  with  at  all  by  this  measure  of  international 
copyright.  The  old  gentleman  was  a  little  taken  aback. 
He  hemmed  and  hawed  and  admitted  that  he  had  been 
mistaken.  I  told  him  that  I  had  already  reassured  the 
special  representative  of  the  old  ladies,  and  the  Senator 
promised  to  give  his  support  to  the  bill.  These  incidents 
connected  with  the  fight  for  international  copyright  are, 
however,  in  advance  of  my  narrative,  having  been  referred 
to  merely  because  they  were  connected  with  the  name  of 
Charles  Francis  Adams. 

The  second  set  in  the  series,  the  writings  of  Franklin, 
were  edited  for  us  by  John  Bigelow  who  was  undoubtedly 
the  best  authority  on  the  subject  of  Franklin's  career. 
Bigelow' s  distinguished  service  to  our  country  as  repre- 
sentative in  Paris  during  the  years  of  the  Civil  War 


72  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

belongs  to  recorded  history.  The  veteran  statesman 
lived  to  the  age  of  ninety-six  and  was  to  the  last  a  clear- 
headed and  capable  citizen,  contributing  his  share  of 
service  and  enlightenment  to  the  community.  He  was 
at  his  death  president  of  the  Century  Club  and  in  his 
ninety-fourth  year  he  gave  before  a  large  audience  a 
charming  talk  on  his  personal  relations  with  Victor  Hugo. 
Bigelow  had,  while  in  France  between  1861  and  1870, 
made  a  special  study  of  the  records  in  the  residence  of 
Franklin  in  the  years  1776-1783.  He  had  come  to  the 
opinion  that  the  text  of  the  autobiography  of  Franklin 
as  first  brought  into  print  in  London  by  his  grandson 
was  not  authentic,  but  had  been  seriously  garbled.  It 
was  Bigelow's  good  fortune  to  discover  in  Passy  the  manu- 
script, in  large  part  autographic,  which  presented  the 
complete  and  accurate  text.  This  manuscript  he  placed 
at  our  service  for  the  edition  of  the  works  and  we  utilized 
the  same  text  later  for  a  separate  issue  of  the  famous  auto- 
biography. The  material,  while  a  hundred  years  old, 
had  not  come  into  print  until  our  publication  in  1885. 
Its  ownership  was,  therefore,  until  the  date  of  publica- 
tion, protected  under  common  law  and  we  were  able  to 
secure  in  Mr.  Bigelow's  name  as  the  owner  a  copyright 
for  the  term  of  twenty-eight  years  from  1885. 

The  editing  of  the  writings  of  Washington  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Worthington  C.  Ford,  whose  scholar- 
ship in  American  history  made  him  in  every  way  com- 
petent ;  the  preparation  of  the  writings  of  Jefferson  was 
confided  to  Ford's  younger  brother,  Paul  Ford.  Paul 
was  equally  capable  as  a  scholar  but  was  somewhat  "dif- 
ficult ' '  in  temperament  and  in  methods.  The  ' '  Jefferson '  * 
as  completed  was  a  first-class  piece  of  work,  but  the  task 
in  the  publishing  office  of  bringing  it  into  print  under  the 
perverse  and  exacting  methods  of  the  editor  was  by  no 
means  an  easy  one.  In  the  course  of  the  succeeding 


"  The  Leavenworth  Case  "  73 

twenty-five  years,  the  series  was  completed  with  the 
publication  of  the  works  of  Madison,  Monroe,  Samuel 
Adams,  Jay,  George  Mason,  Thomas  Paine,  and  finally  of 
Lincoln.  Some  years  later,  we  associated  with  the  same 
series  a  set  of  the  Writings  of  my  valued  friend  Carl 
Schurz. 

Among  the  men  of  letters  with  whom  during  this  period 
I  came  into  pleasant  personal  association  was  Charles 
Dudley  Warner,  who  had  at  that  time  some  editorial 
responsibility  with  the  Hartford  Courant.  Warner  pre- 
pared about  1880  for  one  of  our  editions  of  Irving's  Works 
a  very  charming  and  characteristic  study  of  the  character 
and  writings  of  Washington  Irving,  with  whose  personality 
Warner  was  fully  sympathetic.  I  remember  one  evening 
in  New  York,  probably  at  the  Century  Club,  on  which 
Warner  passed  on  to  me  what  he  called  the  "handshake 
of  Shakespeare."  He  told  me,  with  what  I  think  was  full 
belief  on  his  part,  that  this  handshake  had  been  given 
to  him  by  some  friend  in  England  with  a  trustworthy 
account  of  its  heritage  or  transmission.  The  word  was 
that  some  good  Elizabethan  had  passed  on  to  his  next  of 
kin  the  handshake  as  it  had  been  given  to  him  by  the 
great  poet  and  that  through  such  next  of  kin  the  symbol 
had  come  down  from  generation  to  generation  until  it 
had  finally  reached  (among  many  others  who  had  shared 
in  the  transmission)  the  Yankee  publisher. 

"  The  Leavenworth  Case."  One  afternoon,  sometime  in 
the  winter  of  1880,  just  as  I  was  preparing  to  close  my 
desk,  a  young  lady  and  her  father  came  in,  the  latter 
burdened  with  an  enormous  package  of  manuscript.  The 
daughter  was  about  twenty  and  admitted  that  this  was 
her  first  attempt  at  literary  production.  The  father  did 
most  of  the  talking,  but  his  statement  that  the  story  that 
his  daughter  had  produced  was  certain  to  attract  wide- 
spread attention  was  a  word  that  is  listened  to  so  often 


74  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

in  a  publishing  office  that  it  did  not  impress  me  very  seri- 
ously. I  could  only  dismiss  my  callers  with  the  usual 
word  that  the  manuscript  would  receive  careful  attention. 
The  great  amount  of  material,  the  admitted  inexperience 
of  the  author,  even  the  detail  that  the  script  had  been 
written  not  in  ink  but  in  pencil  and  on  yellow  instead  of 
on  white  sheets,  gave  a  pretty  strong  impression  against 
the  probability  that  the  story  possessed  any  publishing 
importance.  I  put  a  few  of  the  first  chapters  into  my 
bag  and  began  the  reading  rather  late  in  the  evening  when 
I  had  gotten  through  with  other  matters.  I  found  myself 
annoyed,  notwithstanding  the  troublesome  strain  on  my 
eyes  from  the  pencil  script,  that  I  had  not  brought  home 
more  chapters.  The  old  man  was  right  in  his  contention 
that  the  manuscript  would  attract  at  once  the  attention 
of  the  reader,  for  the  book  was  the  famous  Leavenworih 
Case,  and  the  murder,  the  solution  of  which  constitutes 
the  problem  of  the  story,  occurs  in  the  second  chapter. 
The  narrative  was  absorbing  and  held  the  attention  of 
the  reader  throughout,  but  its  exceptional  compass  made 
it  difficult  if  not  impossible  to  manage  on  ordinary  pub- 
lishing lines.  As  first  written,  The  Leavenworih  Case 
contained  about  two  hundred  thousand  words,  that  is 
to  say  enough  for  two  novels  of  the  average  compass. 

In  arranging  for  another  call  from  father  and  daughter 
I  expressed  my  cordial  interest  and  at  the  same  time 
pointed  out  the  difficulty  from  a  business  point  of  view 
in  the  management  of  such  an  elephant  of  a  romance. 
With  a  good  deal  of  protest,  Miss  Green  accepted  the 
task  of  eliminating  certain  portions  of  the  narrative,  but 
it  was  as  if  she  had  undertaken  to  cut  up  a  baby.  Twice 
did  the  manuscript  go  back  for  curtailment,  but  as  finally 
printed,  the  volume  still  contained  160,000  words.  The 
father's  hopefulness  about  it  has,  however,  proved  to  be 
justified  by  the  continued  interest  of  successive  generations 


The  Attempt  to  Protect  Irving' s  Works    75 

of  readers.  The  Leavenworth  Case  is  one  of  the  few 
American  stories  which  thirty  odd  years  after  its  first 
publication  is  still  in  continued  demand,  and  by  this 
date  (1914)  it  must  have  reached  the  eyes  and  absorbed 
the  attention  of  more  than  half  a  million  of  readers.  The 
clever  author  has  during  the  past  thirty  years  continued 
to  present  from  season  to  season  detective  stories  ingen- 
ious in  plan  and  dramatic  in  narrative.  All  of  these  later 
volumes  have  shown  a  full  measure  of  ingenuity  and 
dramatic  quality,  but  no  one  of  them  has  in  the  judgment 
of  the  fiction-reading  public  quite  come  up  to  the  level 
of  the  first  story,  the  work  of  a  girl  o'  nineteen.  A  success- 
ful book  of  a  season  is  of  course  a  good  th:ng  for  a  publisher 
to  secure,  but  the  securing  of  an  author  who  can  from 
year  to  year  hold  the  attention  of  increasing  circles  of 
readers  is,  for  the  maintenance  of  a  publishing  business,  a 
very  much  more  valuable  thing.  Such  authors  constitute, 
unfortunately,  but  a  very  small  percentage  of  the  writers 
of  any  generation. 

The  Attempt  to  Protect  living's  Works.  Our  firm  had 
continued  the  publication,  in  a  variety  of  editions,  of  the 
works  of  Washington  Irving,  the  arrangement  for  which 
had  been  made  by  my  father  on  his  return  to  New  York 
in  1848.  The  revised  editions  had  secured  the  protection 
of  copyright  for  the  term  in  force  in  the  law  back  of  1891, 
twenty-eight  years  from  the  date  of  publication.  This 
earlier  statute  provided  that  at  the  end  of  twenty-eight 
years,  a  renewal  term  of  fourteen  years  could  be  secured 
by  the  author,  or  if  the  author  were  no  longer  living,  by 
widow  or  by  child.  Irving  had  never  married,  and  the 
nieces  who  for  many  years  made  his  home  circle,  while 
considered  by  him  as  his  children,  had  not  been  legally 
adopted.  It  was,  therefore,  not  practicable  to  secure 
for  the  books,  even  in  their  revised  editions,  the  protec- 
tion of  a  second  term  of  copyright  and  the  copyrights 


76  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

began  to  come  to  an  end  in  1876.  The  copyright  pro- 
tection for  the  original  editions  of  the  earlier  works,  of 
which  the  Knickerbocker  dated  back  to  1809  and  the 
Sketch  Book  to  1816,  had,  of  course,  long  since  come  to 
an  end. 

In  1874,  an  enterprising  firm  of  subscription  publishers, 
Pollard  &  Mosst  brought  into  print  in  one  thick  octavo 
volume  a  group  of  the  earlier  books  reprinted  from  the 
text  of  these  first  editions,  and  this  book  was  placed  in 
the  market  under  the  title  of  the  Works  of  Washington 
Irving.  The  advertisements  and  the  descriptive  circulars 
were  so  worded  as  to  give  the  impression  to  any  buyer 
or  reader  who  did  not  have  adequate  knowledge  of  Ameri- 
can literary  production  that  he  had  before  him  the  com- 
plete set  of  writings  of  this  leading  American  author. 
These  writings  were,  in  the  editions  that  the  Putnams  were 
then  publishing,  presented  in  twenty-six  volumes,  and  it 
was,  of  course,  a  travesty  upon  the  memory  of  the  author, 
as  well  as  a  fraud  upon  the  confidence  of  the  reader,  to 
induce  him  under  this  representation  to  buy  as  the  com- 
plete productions  of  Irving  a  volume  that  contained  only 
partial  and  fragmentary  texts.  In  the  case,  for  instance, 
of  the  book  that  appears  in  the  works  under  the  title  of 
Wolfert's  Roost,  the  Pollard  &  Moss  volume  contained  a 
single  magazine  paper  which  had  been  published  in  the 
Knickerbocker  Magazine  under  the  title  of  "Wolfert's 
Roost." 

We  were  naturally  concerned  at  this  serious  invasion 
of  the  property  value  of  Irving's  works  not  only  for  our- 
selves but  for  the  interests  of  the  two  surviving  nieces 
of  the  author  whose  livelihood  depended  in  large  part 
upon  the  payments  that  the  publishers  were  able  to  make 
to  them  from  year  to  year.  The  Pollard  &  Moss  volume 
contained  no  material  still  protected  by  copyright,  and 
we  could  take  action  against  it  only  on  the  ground  that 


The  Attempt  to  Protect  Irving's  Works    77 

in  the  form  in  which  the  material  was  presented  the  pub- 
lication constituted  an  unfair  interference  with  the  good- 
will value  of  the  copyrighted  writings  of  Irving.  We 
claimed  further  that  the  book  as  entitled  and  as  described 
in  the  circulars  represented  an  attempt  to  secure  moneys 
from  the  book-buying  public  on  fake  statements.  In 
these  later  years,  and  particularly  since  1890,  the  American 
courts  have  been  increasingly  ready  to  protect  literary 
producers  and  their  business  representatives  against  "un- 
fair competition"  and  to  protect  the  public  against  the 
risk  of  purchasing  articles  that  were  sold  under  false 
pretences  or  with  misleading  descriptions;  but  in  1874, 
at  the  time  of  this  Pollard  &  Moss  publication,  the  judges 
were  not  prepared  to  take  a  stand  for  the  protection  either 
of  producers  or  of  the  interests  of  the  public.  In  our  suit 
against  Pollard  &  Moss,  Judge  Van  Voorst  of  the  Supreme 
Court  indicated  in  certain  utterances  that  he  was  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  purposes  of  the  Putnams  in  their  attempt 
to  protect  their  clients,  to  defend  their  own  business 
interests,  and  to  prevent  the  public  from  being  misled. 
He  said,  however,  that  he  could  find  no  provision  of  law 
which  would  enable  our  case  to  be  maintained.  The  de- 
fendants had  the  right  to  publish  material  which  was  out 
of  copyright ;  and  as  the  writings  so  printed  by  them  were 
the  works  of  Washington  Irving,  they  had  the  right  to 
use  this  term  in  their  descriptions.  I  ventured,  through 
my  counsel,  to  suggest  that  the  court  might  order  the 
defendants  to  print  on  the  title-page  of  their  book  and  in 
the  descriptive  circulars  a  caution  to  the  public — some  such 
term  as  caveat  emptor;  but  this  suggestion  was  treated 
as  a  joke.  The  Pollard  Moss  volume  not  only  consti- 
tuted in  itself  a  serious  interference  with  the  Irving  prop- 
erty but  served  to  remind  other  unscrupulous  reprinters 
that  the  Irving  writings,  or  portions  of  them,  were  now 
open  to  appropriation.  The  returns  from  the  sales  of 


78  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

the  authorized  editions  were,  of  necessity,  reduced  from 
year  to  year,  but  we  were  able,  however,  to  carry  out 
what  we  felt  to  be  an  obligation  to  the  nieces  of  my  father's 
old  friend  and  client,  and  to  keep  up  to  the  end  of  their 
lives  without  any  material  reduction  an  average  annual 
payment  that  was  sufficient  for  their  needs. 

The  Darling  Suit.  In  the  early  eighties,  we  had  occa- 
sion to  defend  our  publishing  rights  in  connection  with  a 
work  on  Anatomy,  for  the  publication  of  which  we  had 
come  into  agreement  with  Professor  Darling  of  the  Uni- 
versity Medical  College.  The  Professor  was  a  capable 
lecturer  and  he  had  devised  a  series  of  charts  which  had 
for  their  purpose  the  aiding  of  students  to  memorize  the 
anatomical  details  of  the  human  figure.  The  Professor 
was  not  himself  a  draughtsman,  and  the  actual  designing 
of  these  charts  was  done  under  his  instructions  by  a 
clever  Hebrew  assistant.  The  mnemonic  aid  was  pre- 
sented in  the  form  of  a  tree  the  branches  of  which  repre- 
sented in  their  relative  importance  the  greater  and  the 
smaller  bones  of  the  human  frame.  These  trees  were 
drawn  upon  the  blackboard  by  the  assistant  and  sheets 
containing  the  same  design  were  copied  and  used  in  mem- 
orizing the  bones  for  use  later  in  examinations.  The 
doctor  was  working  rather  slowly  over  the  preparation  of 
his  text  for  our  volume,  the  illustrations  for  which  were, 
in  like  manner,  being  drawn  by  his  assistant.  This  as- 
sistant had,  however,  worked  out  a  plan  by  which  he  was 
securing  satisfactory  direct  receipts  from  the  students. 
He  wrote  out  the  text  of  the  lectures  and  connected  with 
this  text  the  reproductions  of  his  own  blackboard  designs. 
He  then  had  text  and  designs  reproduced  by  one  of.  the 
facsimile  processes,  and  the  sheets  were  sold  to  the  stu- 
dents at  two  dollars  a  copy.  The  book  that  we  had 
announced  was  to  be  charged  at  $3.50.  The  assistant 
securing  these  returns  did  what  he  could  to  delay  the 


The  Darling  Suit  79 

work  of  the  completion  of  the  book.  The  doctor  found 
that  he  was  selling  these  transcripts,  but  was  appeased  by 
the  payment  to  him  of  fifty  cents  a  copy,  and  with  this 
arrangement  he  was  content  to  delay  giving  us  the  final 
material  for  the  volume.  We  got  knowledge  of  this  pro- 
duction for  sale  of  material  the  control  of  which  had  been 
assigned  to  us  under  contract,  and  we  also  found  that  the 
doctor  was  himself  benefiting  by  the  sale. 

We  brought  suit  under  the  charge  of  breach  of  warranty. 
The  doctor  was  advised  by  his  counsel  that  he  had  no 
defence,  and  before  the  suit  was  brought  to  trial  he  paid 
us  one  thousand  dollars  for  damages.  The  assistant  was 
either  dismissed  or  threatened  with  dismissal,  and  our 
book  was  finally  brought  into  publication. 


CHAPTER  V 

Some  Americans 

Carl  Schurz.  With  the  final  crushing  out  early  in  1849 
of  the  armed  forces  of  the  revolutionists,  it  became  in- 
cumbent upon  Schurz  and  his  associates,  whose  names 
had  been  blacklisted  by  the  Prussian  authorities,  to  get 
out  of  the  country  promptly.  Schurz  found,  however,  a 
more  commanding  duty  requiring  his  stay  in  Germany, 
whatever  the  risks  of  such  stay  might  prove  to  be.  His 
friend  and  leader  Kinkel  had  been  taken  prisoner  and 
had  been  condemned  by  some  military  court  in  Berlin 
to  imprisonment  for  life.  He  was  confined  temporarily 
in  a  local  prison  in  Spandau  near  Berlin.  Schurz  col- 
lected a  little  money  from  other  friends  of  Kinkel,  and 
making  his  way  to  Berlin,  devoted  some  weeks  to  organ- 
izing a  plan  of  rescue.  After  several  unsuccessful  experi- 
ments, one  of  the  Spandau  guards  was  found  who  was 
sympathetic  with  the  purposes  of  the  revolutionists,  and 
some  money  was  placed  in  trust  which  was  sufficient 
to  protect  the  family  of  this  man  from  want  in  case,  his 
connection  with  the  escape  being  discovered,  he  should 
be  disgraced  and  imprisoned.  A  rope  was  smuggled  up 
into  the  room  of  the  prisoner,  and  on  the  night  appointed, 
the  confidential  guard  being  on  duty,  Kinkel,  who  com- 
plained later  that  he  had  had  no  training  as  a  rope  dancer, 
managed  to  get  down  from  his  window  hand  over  hand. 

80 


Carl  Schurz  81 

The  night  was,  fortunately,  dark  and  rainy,  and  Kinkel 
was  slipped  into  a  close  carriage  that  was  waiting  in  the 
woods.  He  succeeded  in  getting  through  Holland  into 
England  where  afterwards  he  was  joined  by  Schurz. 
Both  men  were  out  of  money,  but  they  found  occupation 
in  teaching.  Kinkel  remained  in  England  until  his  death 
some  years  later.  Schurz,  being  still  impecunious,  mar- 
ried, with  the  rashness  of  youth,  the  daughter  of  another 
impecunious  exile,  on  the  strength  of  an  appointment 
he  had  secured  as  the  Paris  correspondent  of  theAllgemeine 
Zeitung.  He  remained  in  Paris  for  a  couple  of  years,  but 
in  1851,  when  Louis  Napoleon  had  his  coup  d'etat  in  pre- 
paration, the  authorities  decided  that  Paris  had  better  be 
freed  from  sojourners  of  revolutionary  reputation.  Schurz 
was  on  the  black  list  and  was  promptly  arrested,  and  after 
being  in  prison  for  some  days  trying  to  ascertain  what 
charges  had  been  filed  against  him,  he  was  able  to  secure 
no  more  specific  report  than  that  these  charges  were  very 
serious.  He  was  told  further,  however,  that  a  passport 
was  available  to  take  him  to  England,  but  that  unless  he 
were  prepared  to  make  immediate  use  of  this  passport 
his  imprisonment  would  be  indefinite.  He  finally  came 
to  understand  the  purpose  of  the  authorities  and  accepted 
the  passport. 

It  proved  difficult  to  secure  an  income  in  London,  and 
he  decided,  following  the  example  of  not  a  few  of  his  revo- 
lutionary friends,  to  try  his  chances  in  the  great  Republic. 
Landing  with  his  young  wife  in  New  York,  he  managed 
to  secure  a  small  income  by  teaching,  and  a  little  later 
accepted  a  post  on  a  German-American  paper  in  Wis- 
consin. A  year  or  two  before  the  war,  he  migrated  to  St. 
Louis,  where  he  became  one  of  the  more  important  work- 
ers on  the  Westliche  Post.  He  was  in  St.  Louis  when  the 
war  broke  out,  and  his  military  experience  in  Germany, 
brief  though  it  had  been,  was  promptly  utilized  by  the 


82  Some  Americans 

Unionists  of  the  city  in  the  organization  of  a  regiment 
made  up  chiefly  of  Germans.  Schurz  went  to  the  front 
as  lieutenant-colonel,  but  in  the  course  of  the  year  was 
given  the  command  of  a  brigade,  and  having  rendered 
distinguished  service  as  a  brigade  and  division  commander, 
had  the  opportunity  during  the  first  critical  days  of  the 
battle  of  Gettysburg  of  commanding  the  Eleventh  Corps. 
During  one  year  of  the  Civil  War,  he  consented  to 
accept  the  post  of  Minister  to  Spain,  but  preferring  active 
service,  he  had  returned  in  time  to  take  part  in  the  final 
operations.  After  the  war,  he  was  elected  Senator  from 
Missouri,  and  in  1876  he  was  appointed  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  by  President  Hayes.  He  distinguished  his 
period  of  service  in  the  Cabinet  by  introducing  ordinary 
business  methods  into  the  Department  that  managed 
so  important  a  division  of  the  business  of  the  country. 
In  advance  of  the  enactment  in  1878  of  the  first  Federal 
Civil  Service  Act,  he  established  in  his  own  Department  a 
system  of  appointments  and  promotions  under  the  prin- 
ciples of  civil  service.  The  example  of  the  Department  of 
the  Interior  was  followed  to  some  extent  in  the  Treasury 
and  even  in  the  Post  Office  Departments,  that  had  been 
the  most  largely  dominated  by  the  old-time  spoil  system 
of  appointments.  The  work  done  by  Schurz  was  of 
material  service  in  preparing  the  politicians  and  the 
country  for  the  operation  of  the  Civil  Service  Act,  and  in 
this  work,  and  in  the  honest  application  later  of  the  new 
law,  Schurz  had  the  full  backing  of  President  Hayes. 
With  the  close  of  the  Hayes  administration,  Schurz  was 
thrown  out  of  politics,  or  at  least  out  of  official  politics. 
He  had  fought  through  the  war  as  an  anti-slavery  Repub- 
lican, and  it  was  as  Republican  that  he  had  served  as 
Senator  from  Missouri.  He  had,  therefore,  no  claim 
upon  the  Democratic  party,  but  his  independence  of 
action  and  his  refusal  to  accept  the  authority  of  the  Repub- 


Carl  Schurz  83 

lican  leaders,  men  of  the  Elaine  group,  rendered  it  impos- 
sible for  him  to  secure  any  further  official  position  as  a 
Republican. 

In  1 88 1,  Schurz  took  up  editorial  work  in  New  York  on 
the  staff  of  the  Evening  Post,  a  paper  with  the  independ- 
ence and  non-partisan  policies  of  which  he  found  himself 
in  substantial  sympathy.  The  Post  was  at  that  time 
under  the  editorial  direction  of  Mr.  Godkin,  who,  as  citizen 
and  as  editor,  might  be  described  as  the  typical  independ- 
ent or  Mugwump.  The  two  men  respected  each  other 
cordially,  and  in  certain  matters  were  able  to  work  to- 
gether, but  there  arose  differences  between  them  on  some 
sociological  questions — chiefly  I  think  in  regard  to  the 
relations  between  labour  and  capital.  Schurz  was  more 
of  an  idealist  than  Godkin,  and  was  not  so  well  trained  or 
clear-headed  as  an  economist.  The  first  presidential 
campaign  of  Elaine  brought  Schurz  back  into  politics, 
not  for  office-holding,  but  for  leadership.  He  broke 
definitely  with  the  Republican  party,  and  through  his  in- 
fluence with  the  great  mass  of  German-Americans  through- 
out the  country,  and  outside  of  the  German  circles  with 
citizens  generally  of  an  independent  way  of  thinking,  and 
his  effective  oratory,  Schurz  made  himself  an  important 
factor  in  the  defeat  of  Elaine. 

Schurz  was  a  natural  orator,  while  his  oratory  repre- 
sented a  modification  of  the  old-time  oratorical  ideals 
that  characterized  the  speakers  of  the  last  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  He  never  spoke  except  in  behalf  of 
something  in  which  he  was  personally  interested  and  for 
which  his  convictions  and  his  sympathies  had  been  secured. 
He  had  a  keen  sense  of  humour  which  served  to  lighten 
up  even  the  fiercest  of  his  denunciations  of  political 
chicanery.  Wanting  nothing  for  himself,  he  was  abso- 
lutely fearless  in  his  presentation  of  the  methods  of  men 
whose  influence  was,  in  his  belief,  detrimental  to  the  com- 


84  Some  Americans 

mon wealth.  The  fact  that  in  these  latter  days  there  was 
no  place  in  our  political  system  for  a  born  leader  like 
Schurz  is  an  example  of  the  inconvenience,  or  to  put  it 
more  strongly,  the  disadvantage,  of  the  exaggerated  local 
system  that  controls  American  political  methods.  In 
England  or  in  France  a  citizen  of  Schurz's  ability,  possess- 
ing on  the  one  hand  special  political  capacity  and  power 
for  influencing  the  voter,  and  on  the  other  the  ability  to 
render  the  highest  kind  of  service  as  an  administrator, 
would  have  been  promptly  taken  advantage  of  by  some 
constituency  with  the  political  views  of  which  he  was 
more  or  less  in  accord,  and  which  would  have  been  hon- 
oured by  the  service  of  a  representative  of  so  high  a  stand- 
ard of  politics.  Under  the  American  routine,  which 
makes  it  necessary  for  a  member  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives to  be  a  resident  of  the  district  that  elects  him, 
and  for  a  Senator  to  have  a  domicile  in  the  State  he  repre- 
sents, there  was  no  place  for  Schurz.  His  work  was  being 
done  in  the  city  of  New  York  which  with  a  great  Demo- 
cratic majority  was  not  prepared  to  include  in  its  re- 
presentation to  Congress  a  man  who  had  been  an  active 
Republican,  while  the  type  of  Tammany-led  democracy 
that  controlled  the  Democratic  organization  of  the  city 
had  in  any  case  no  use  for  a  representative  like  Schurz 
whose  aims  were  purely  impersonal  and  whose  service 
could  never  be  utilized  for  the  advantage  of  a  faction 
or  for  furthering  "commercial"  politics. 

Schurz  acted  later  as  representative  for  certain  German 
investors  in  winding  up  the  affairs  of  a  bankrupt  railroad, 
and  he  served  for  a  year  or  two  as  the  American  director 
of  the  Hamburg  Steamship  Company.  With  no  business 
training,  his  natural  sense  and  his  clear-headed  judgment 
enabled  him  to  fill  with  success  and  with  honour  every 
responsibility  that  came  to  him. 

For  a  number  of  years,  he  gave  service  that,  after  the 


Carl  Schurz  85 

death  of  George  William  Curtis,  was  particularly  valuable, 
in  the  work  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  Associa- 
tion, in  which  he  succeeded  Curtis  as  President.  He  was 
probably  the  most  effective  of  the  Civil  Service  reformers 
in 'his  power  of  showing  up  the  absurdity  of  the  conten- 
tions of  the  so-called  "practical  politicians"  and  the  sup- 
porters of  the  spoils  system  dreaded  his  winged  words 
more  than  those  of  any  other  of  their  opponents.  He 
came  to  be  known  as  the  great  German-American  citizen, 
and  he  had  occupied  a  position  that  was  unparalleled  in 
the  history  of  the  country.  If  any  German,  or  for  that 
matter  any  well  informed  citizen  from  Texas  to  Oregon, 
was  asked  who  was  the  leading  American  of  German  birth, 
the  reply  would  always  have  been  Carl  Schurz. 

I  once  heard  him  say  in  a  large  gathering  in  New  York: 
"I  am  inclined  to  take  the  ground  that  my  American 
citizenship  is  of  a  higher  order  than  that  of  men  who  were 
born  Americans.  You  are  citizens  by  the  accident  of 
your  childhood;  I  am  an  American  citizen  by  the  free 
choice  of  my  mature  years." 

In  the  later  years  of  his  life,  at  a  time  when  having 
resigned  the  editorship  of  the  Evening  Post,  he  had  no 
assured  income,  a  group  of  public-spirited  citizens,  mainly 
those  of  German  descent,  got  together  a  fund  of  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  which  was  presented  to  Schurz  by 
a  committee  appointed  for  the  purpose.  He  was  natu- 
rally touched  at  this  testimonial  of  the  appreciation  and 
the  confidence  of  his  German-American  fellow-citizens, 
but  he  found  it  necessary  to  decline  the  gift.  He  pointed 
out  that  he  must  reserve  for  himself  freedom  of  action. 
He  suggested  that  there  was  always  the  possibility  of 
some  contingency  arising  in  which  his  opinion  in  regard  to 
the  action  and  the  duty  of  the  United  States  might  not  be 
in  accord  with  that  of  other  American  citizens  of  German 
birth.  He  could  not  take  the  risk  of  being  exposed  to  any 


86  Some  Americans 

influence,  or  the  appearance  of  any  influence,  that  would 
shape  or  modify  his  opinion  on  a  question  or  on  a  duty 
of  the  day.  With  some  little  difficulty,  as  the  money 
had  been  collected  in  small  amounts  from  all  parts  of  the 
country,  the  committee  completed  the  task  of  distribut- 
ing it  back  to  the  original  subscribers.  If  Schurz  had 
lived  until  1914,  such  a  contingency  as  he  had  foreshadowed 
would  have  arisen.  His  old  comrade  in  arms,  my  brother- 
in-law,  Dr.  Jacobi,  who  had  fought  with  Schurz  in  Ger- 
many on  the  barricades  of  1848,  took  the  ground  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war  of  German  aggression  that  the  fight 
had  for  its  purpose  the  extension  over  Europe  of  the  Hohen- 
zollern  ideas  of  government  by  militarism.  Jacobi  con- 
tended that  the  men  of  'forty-eight  had  risked  their  lives 
and  their  liberties  to  fight  against  this  same  domination 
of  military  autocracy,  and  that  there  was  no  reason 
they  should  approve  it  now.  He  ventured  the  utterance 
that  if  his  friend  Schurz  was  living,  Schurz  would  take 
the  same  position  as  himself.  Jacobi  came  into  antago- 
nism with  not  a  few  of  his  German-born  fellow-citizens,  but 
sturdy  old  'forty-eighter  as  he  was,  and  is,  he  was  not 
troubled  by  criticism  of  his  position;  and  those  of  us  who, 
like  Jacobi,  had  intimate  knowledge  of  Schurz,  believe 
that  Schurz's  word  and  influence  would  in  1914  have  been 
utilized  against  the  war  of  Prussian  aggression. 

Chester  A.  Arthur.  Sometime  during  the  year  1880, 
I  was  called  upon  to  serve  as  secretary  for  a  conference 
of  independent  Republicans  that  had  been  brought  to- 
gether under  the  leadership  of  George  William  Curtis. 
The  meeting  was  held  at  some  house  in  Madison  Avenue. 
It  must  have  been  considered  as  of  some  national  import- 
ance as  we  had  with  us  in  addition  to  a  group  of  independ- 
ent New  Yorkers,  Charles  Francis  Adams  from  Boston 
and  Charles  J.  Bonaparte,  from  Baltimore.  I  had  in  my 
work  with  the  civic  reformers  come  into  some  direct 


Chester  A.  Arthur  87 

knowledge  of  the  method  of  machine  politics  in  New 
York  City,  and  in  my  own  speech  I  must  have  character- 
ized by  name  some  of  the  operations  of  Chester  A.  Arthur, 
because,  as  I  learned  later,  some  utterance  of  mine  at 
that  meeting  had  remained  in  Arthur's  memory. 

I  had  not  supposed  that  I  was  an  important  enough 
member  of  the  body  politic  for  any  words  of  mine  to 
carry  weight  with  a  political  leader  like  Arthur  whose 
future  led  him  to  the  Presidency. 

Arthur  was  by  birth  and  by  training  a  gentleman,  but 
he  had  shown  a  fondness  and  an  aptness  for  small  political 
methods.  He  had,  like  Alonzo  B.  Cornell,  been  interested 
in  doing  what  was  in  his  power  to  undermine  the  principles 
and  the  provisions  of  the  Civil  Service  Act  by  utilizing  in 
political  organizations  the  Federal  employees, — the  cus- 
tom-house men  and  the  post-office  carriers.  He  had  taken 
part  in  what  might  fairly  be  described  as  the  "peanut" 
politics  of  the  bar-room.  He  had  political  ambition,  and 
it  was  in  these  earlier  years  his  aim  to  secure  political 
influence  through  the  management  of  district  henchmen 
rather  than  in  impressing  upon  the  great  mass  of  voters 
the  value  of  the  measures  that  he  was  prepared  to  advance. 

When,  through  the  death  of  Garfield,  Arthur  became 
President,  there  were  grave  apprehensions  as  to  his  fitness 
for  the  post.  It  was  dreaded  that  he  might  utilize  in  his 
counsel  in  Washington  his  old-time  district  political  asso- 
ciates in  New  York,  but  these  apprehensions  proved  not 
to  be  justified. 

As  has  been  the  case  with  not  a  few  other  Americans  to 
whom  has  come  the  opportunity  of  leadership,  Arthur's 
character  and  capacity  for  good  service  developed  under  re- 
sponsibility. He  freed  himself  largely,  if  not  entirely,  from 
his  old-time  smaller  political  associates.  He  did  undoubt- 
edly the  best  that  was  in  him  during  the  three  and  a  half 
years  of  his  Presidency  for  the  dignity  and  the  welfare  of  the 


88  Some  Americans 

Republic  and  in  the  performance  of  a  task  of  exceptional 
difficulty  he  deserves  to  be  commemorated  with  honour. 

During  one  of  the  years  of  his  Presidency,  my  wife  was 
visiting  in  Washington  at  the  house  of  my  cousin  Mrs. 
Loring  who  had  married  George  B.  Loring  of  Massachu- 
setts. Loring  was  at  that  time  Commissioner  of  Agricul- 
ture and  was  on  good  terms  with  the  President.  The 
wife  had  with  her  our  oldest  daughter,  at  that  time  a  girl 
of  ten,  and  thought  that  it  would  be  pleasant  for  the  child, 
as  certainly  it  would  be  for  herself,  to  have  an  opportunity 
of  seeing  the  President.  Arthur  was  gracious  enough  in 
regard  to  receiving  a  call  from  any  guest  of  Dr.  Loring. 
"What  did  you  say  was  the  name  of  the  lady?"  said  the 
President.  "Mrs.  George  Haven  Putnam,  who  married  a 
cousin  of  my  wife."  "George  Haven  Putnam  is  a  liar," 
said  the  President;  "he  is  one  of  those  irresponsible  re- 
formers who  have  no  regard  for  the  reputation  of  other 
people,"  and  then  in  a  second:  "But  after  all,  that  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  wife  or  of  the  little  girl.  Let  the  lady 
come  by  all  means  and  we  will  say  nothing  about  her 
husband. ' '  So  the  wife  and  the  daughter  went  and  Arthur 
received  them  as  a  cordial  gentleman  and  they  never 
knew  of  the  annoyance  he  had  felt  for  two  years  or  more 
against  the  "irresponsible"  husband.  Loring,  however, 
who  was  a  little  anxious  at  the  reception  that  might  be 
given  to  his  guests,  had  whispered  to  my  wife  the  desir- 
ability of  saying  something  pleasant  to  the  President. 
She  had  been  a  little  puzzled  at  the  requirement,  but  had 
finally  made  the  perfectly  natural  remark  that  her  little 
girl  was  particularly  interested  in  seeing  a  man  who  had 
more  power  than  the  Queen  of  England,  a  remark  that 
possibly  helped  to  keep  Arthur's  temper  in  order.  She 
then  went  on  with  something  that  was  a  little  personal 
and  somewhat  more  troublesome.  We  were  at  that  time 
living  on  Washington  Heights,  in  a  neighbourhood  that 


The  Death  of  Garfield  89 

while  a  part  of  the  city  was  then  a  very  rural  community. 
We  had  been  somewhat  bothered  by  the  condition  of  a 
big  sunken  lot  immediately  to  the  south  of  our  cottage, 
in  which  there  had  been  permitted  to  gather  stagnant 
water,  disagreeable  and  possibly  dangerous.  The  wife 
had  found  that  this  lot  was  the  property  of  President 
Arthur  and  when  he  asked  as  a  matter  of  form  whether 
there  was  any  way  in  which  he  could  serve  her,  she  re- 
sponded frankly  enough:  "Mr.  President,  I  do  wish  that 
you  would  give  orders  for  the  draining  of  your  lot  on  i4Oth 
Street."  He  asked  for  particulars  and  it  was  evident  that 
he  had  for  some  years  forgotten  about  this  particular  prop- 
erty ;  it  must  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  a  busy  President 
that  the  remedy  which  he  promised  should  be  given  to 
the  difficulties  complained  of  was,  a  few  weeks  later,  duly 
put  into  effect.  The  lot  was  drained  and  the  mosquito 
breeding  and  the  risk  of  malaria  were  brought  to  a  close. 
The  Death  of  Garfield.  In  July,  1881, 1  was,  in  accord- 
ance with  my  usual  routine,  sojourning  in  England.  I 
had  gone  to  spend  the  week-end  with  my  friend  Alexander 
Macmillan,  the  publisher,  who  had  an  attractive  home 
just  outside  of  London,  on  Balham  Common.  This  estate, 
which  in  later  years  in  connection  with  the  growth  of 
London  had  come  to  have  a  largely  increased  value,  Mac- 
millan, who  had  prospered  in  his  business,  finally  trans- 
ferred as  a  free  gift  to  the  diocese  of  London.  It  was  his 
plan  that  the  house  should  be  utilized  as  the  residence  of 
the  newly  appointed  Suffragan  Bishop.  On  this  occasion, 
Macmillan  was  entertaining  at  an  annual  festival  the 
employees  of  his  publishing  house  and  had  asked  me  down 
to  help  his  sons  and  nephews  look  after  the  guests.  I  had 
given  some  help  in  steering  the  men  through  the  grounds 
and  had  seen  them  well  started  at  the  national  game  of 
cricket,  which  I  had  played  but  in  which  I  was  not  skilled 
enough  to  take  part  against  English  players.  I  had  gone 


90  Some  Americans 

back  to  the  house  for  a  rest  and  had  taken  a  book  in  the 
library.  The  doorbell  rang  and  the  attendant  showed 
into  the  library  (Mrs.  Macmillan  was  busy  outside  in  the 
grounds)  a  young  lady  who  had  just  arrived  from  London 
by  train.  She  looked  tired  and  curiously  agitated.  In 
reply  to  her  enquiry  as  to  whether  I  was  her  host,  I  had 
mentioned,  naturally  enough,  that  I  was  an  American 
guest;  and  on  hearing  the  word  American,  she  began  to 
tell  me  a  piece  of  news  that  had  just  flashed  across  the 
cables  to  London  and  that  she  had  seen  on  the  billboard 
as  she  was  taking  her  train.  She  was  so  much  overcome, 
however,  that  I  did  not  understand  clearly  what  the  trouble 
was.  I  could  only  make  out  the  words  "the  President" 
and  then  she  fainted,  falling  into  my  arms.  The  house 
was  nearly  empty,  as  everyone  was  engaged  with  the  party 
on  the  lawn.  I  succeeded,  however,  in  depositing  the 
young  lady  (whom  I  recall  as  very  pretty)  on  the  sofa  so 
as  to  be  free  to  reach  the  bell  and  was  much  relieved  to 
get  hold  of  the  housekeeper  and  to  relinquish  my  charge. 
It  was  only  a  little  later,  when  she  had,  in  part  at  least, 
recovered  her  composure,  that  she  asked  the  housekeeper 
to  call  me  to  hear  the  story.  She  had,  it  seems,  heard  in 
the  station  the  announcement  of  the  shooting  of  Garfield. 
She  was  a  young  American  who  had  shown  herself  clever 
in  recitations  in  monologue  and  she  had  been  engaged  by 
my  host  to  come  and  help  entertain  his  men.  She  was  a 
sensitive  girl  and  had  been  so  much  shaken  by  the  shock 
of  the  news  of  the  tragedy  that  I  doubted  for  the  moment 
whether  she  would  be  able  to  pull  herself  together  for 
humorous  recitations;  but  she  showed  the  possession  of 
good  will-power,  and  the  sympathetic  word  with  a  fellow- 
countryman  served  to  relieve  her  first  agitation.  Her 
word  to  me  was:  "Don't  worry  Mr.  Macmillan  with  any 
reference  to  my  silly  breakdown.  I  will  be  ready  at  the 
proper  hour  and  I  can  tell  him  afterwards  the  news  from 


Jefferson  Davis  91 

London."  I  heard  her  go  through  the  first  two  or  three 
recitations,  which  were  given  with  full  spirit  and  express- 
ion, and  then  being  unable,  or  at  least  unwilling,  to  endure 
further  suspense  and  not  feeling  sympathetic  for  social 
requirements,  I  excused  myself  with  my  hostess  and  took 
the  next  train  back  to  London.  At  my  club  I  secured  the 
fuller  details  of  the  tragedy,  but  there  was,  I  may  recall, 
a  period  of  weeks  during  which  we  still  hoped  that  Gar- 
field's  life  would  be  saved. 

Jefferson  Davis.  I  had  occasion  to  come  into  a  brief 
personal  relation  with  Jefferson  Davis  which  gave  me  a 
not  very  favourable  impression  of  the  fair-mindedness  or 
strength  of  character  of  the  man.  Davis  is  best  known  to 
the  later  generation  by  his  own  memoirs,  and  it  is  largely 
his  own  fault  if  the  judgment  passed  upon  him  in  history 
is  not  more  favourable.  He  had  the  opportunity  in  these 
memoirs  of  placing  before  the  world  the  justification  for 
the  cause  maintained  by  the  Southern  States.  There  was, 
of  course,  much  to  be  said,  on  historic  and  other  grounds,  in 
defence  of  the  contention  that  the  Southern  States  had 
the  right  to  secede  and  were  fully  justified  in  their  efforts 
to  establish  a  new  nation.  There  was  something  (al- 
though, of  course,  very  much  less)  to  be  said  also  in  behalf 
of  the  conclusion  that,  possessing  this  legal  right,  they 
were  morally  justified  in  bringing  upon  the  American 
community  the  enormous  burdens  of  the  Civil  War.  The 
record  of  what  the  Southerners  did  during  the  four  years 
of  the  war,  of  the  magnificent  fighting  of  the  men  and  of 
the  patriotic  patience  and  fortitude  of  the  women,  of  the 
readiness  on  the  part  of  men  and  women  alike  to  make 
sacrifices  for  the  cause  in  which  they  had  placed  their 
belief,  such  a  record  any  man  accepted  as  the  leader  of  a 
great  people  might  well  have  been  proud  to  present.  The 
subject  ought  to  have  given  to  a  writer  speaking  from  his 
own  experience  and  with  direct  knowledge  of  the  men  and 


92  Some  Americans 

events,  a  full  measure  of  inspiration.  If  this  leader  of  the 
contest,  who  had  accepted  the  task  also  of  being  its  histo- 
rian, had  been  able  even  in  any  degree  to  forget  himself, 
his  own  ambitions,  his  own  disappointments,  and  his  petty 
personal  grievances,  he  had  in  his  hands  the  material  for 
a  noteworthy  history.  The  volumes  as  printed  present 
no  such  history.  We  have  here  no  broad  statement  of  the 
foundations  on  which  the  Confederacy  was  to  have  been 
based.  We  have  no  good  survey,  political  or  military,  of 
the  events  of  the  four  years'  war.  We  have  no  trust- 
worthy characterizations  of  the  leaders  in  this  war.  In 
place  of  these  things,  we  have  a  thousand  pages  devoted 
in  the  main  to  the  individual  views  of  Davis,  to  the  long 
series  of  bitter  controversies  for  which  Davis  found  occa- 
sion with  the  other  Confederate  leaders,  and  to  specious 
defence  of  actions  of  the  President  which  had  resulted  in 
misfortunes  to  the  cause  of  the  Confederacy.  Davis  had 
an  enormous  capacity  for  controversy,  much  of  which  was 
to  be  described  by  the  less  dignified  name  of  quarrel.  As 
far  as  one  can  judge,  his  difficulties  in  dealing  with  men 
appear  to  have  been  mainly  due  to  his  exaggerated  sub- 
jectivity and  an  enormous  bump  of  self-esteem.  There 
can  be  no  question  that  his  action  at  critical  times  during 
the  four  years'  struggle  in  pushing  out  of  active  operations 
such  leaders  as  Beauregard.  and  Joseph  Johnston,  his 
jealousy  of  Sidney  Johnston  and  of  Lee,  his  insistent  inter- 
ference with  military  operations  of  which  he  had  only  a 
partial  knowledge,  did  very  much  to  weaken  the  cause 
of  the  Confederates.  If,  after  Appomattox,  Davis  had 
succeeded  (as  Lincoln  intended  Davis  should  succeed) 
in  getting  away  from  the  country,  it  is  probable  that  he 
would  have  been  made  the  scapegoat  of  the  lost  cause. 
Upon  his  shoulders  and  upon  his  memory  would  have 
been  placed  not  merely  the  errors  and  the  sins  for  which 
he  was  justly  responsible,  but  some  of  the  blunders  of 


Jefferson  Davis  93 

others.  It  was,  however,  his  exceptional  good  fortune 
to  have  been  kept  a  prisoner  for  some  months  after  the 
close  of  the  war,  with  a  trial  for  treason  hanging  over  his 
head.  As  President  of  the  Confederacy,  held  under 
charges  of  treason  against  the  United  States,  he  was  the 
fitting,  the  necessary,  representative  of  its  principles. 
There  came  to  him  the  benefit,  therefore,  of  all  the  senti- 
ment connected  with  the  lost  cause.  Instead  of  being 
the  scapegoat  he  ends  his  official  career  as  the  hero,  or  at 
least  as  almost  the  hero,  of  the  Confederacy.  Even  this 
exceptional  position  of  Davis  could  not  take  away  from 
Lee  the  honour  that  fairly  belongs  to  the  real  hero  of  the 
Southern  cause. 

One  of  the  disappointments  that  came  to  the  old  Con- 
federate was  in  the  lack  of  success  for  his  memoirs.  He 
assumed  that  these  were  waited  .for  and  would  be  eagerly 
read  not  only  by  his  Southern  countrymen  but  throughout 
the  North  and  throughout  Europe.  The  book  was  pub- 
lished by  the  Appletons  and  secured  a  sale  of  a  few  thou- 
sand copies.  The  people  in  the  South  were  too  poor  to 
buy  books  and  did  not  find  themselves  interested  in 
volumes  devoted,  as  said,  so  largely  to  personal  contro- 
versy on  small  issues  that  were  then  dead  and  that  ought 
to  have  stayed  buried.  The  book  was  treated  with  very 
little  respect  by  reviewers  either  North  or  South.  Davis, 
for  the  time  at  least,  accepted  his  disappointment  in  quiet ; 
but  when,  a  year  or  two  later,  the  memoirs  of  General 
Grant  secured  a  sale  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  copies,  the 
grievance  of  Davis  took  the  form  of  indignation  with  his 
publishers.  He  was  convinced  that  he  had  been  betrayed 
by  these  Northerners  who  had  accepted  the  responsibility 
of  presenting  his  book  to  the  world.  In  place  of  making, 
through  some  representative  in  New  York,  a  direct  en- 
quiry of  his  publishers  as  to  what  had  been  done  and  as 
to  what  still  might  be  done  to  secure  sales  for  his  book,  he 


94  Some  Americans 

permitted  himself  to  bring  into  print  in  newspapers  in  the 
South  paragraphs  which  came  to  be  copied  in  newspapers 
in  the  North,  making  all  kind  of  charges  against  his  wicked 
Northern  publishers.  The  Appletons  naturally  told 
Davis  that  these  invidious  and  more  or  less  libellous  para- 
graphs must  cease,  and  they  finally  brought  pressure  to 
bear  upon  the  old  man  through  some  of  his  friends  who 
had  business  common-sense.  The  publishers  pointed  out 
that  if  he  had  doubts  as  to  the  faithfulness  of  their  business 
management  or  the  accuracy  of  their  accounts,  he  had 
better  appoint  a  representative  with  power  to  look  into 
the  whole  matter.  Davis  called  the  journalist  Donn 
Piatt  to  represent  him  in  an  investigation  of  the  accounts 
and  records  of  the  publishers.  The  Appletons  asked  me 
to  confer  with  Piatt  as  their  representative.  After  the 
papers  had  been  placed  in  our  hands  and  the  books  had 
been  opened  for  our  inspection,  we  exchanged  one  or  two 
letters  and  had  one  interview.  At  the  interview,  Piatt 
said  very  frankly:  "Major,  my  client  has  no  case.  Mr. 
Davis  is  getting  old  and  has  evidently  confused  his  mind 
with  false  impressions.  I  will  see  that  the  necessary 
amende  is  made  to  the  publishers  and  Mr.  Davis  will  have 
to  be  induced  to  keep  quiet  in  the  future."  Piatt  was 
very  gentlemanly  about  the  whole  business  and  the  matter 
was,  of  course,  easily  made  straight  with  the  Appletons. 
It  is  probable  indeed  that  at  the  time  Davis's  mind  had 
already  been  somewhat  weakened.  His  natural  vanity, 
when  his  judgment  had  become  impaired,  had  brought 
him  into  this  difficulty,  as  it  had  brought  him  into  previous 
difficulties. 

He  was  certainly  a  man  of  large  intellectual  powers. 
He  had  won  distinction  as  a  young  soldier  in  the  Mexican 
War.  He  had  taken  place  in  the  first  group  of  the  leaders 
in  the  South  in  the  United  States  Senate.  He  had  borne 
with  undiminished  courage  the  burdens  and  discourage- 


The  Elaine-Cleveland  Campaign          95 

ments  of  the  four  years'  struggle  and  had  shown  himself 
undaunted  to  the  last.  His  courage  and  his  patriotism 
could  not  be  questioned,  and  yet  it  is  probable  that  the 
South  would  have  come  very  much  nearer  success  if  it 
had  placed  the  leadership  of  its  cause  in  the  hands  of 
some  man  of  better  judgment  and  of  less  vanity. 

The  Elaine-Cleveland  Campaign.  In  1884,  the  pre- 
sidential campaign  became  a  very  bitter  contest  indeed. 
James  G.  Blaine  had,  against  strong  protests  from  a  minor- 
ity of  the  delegates,  been  nominated  by  the  Republicans 
and  Grover  Cleveland  became  the  choice  of  the  Demo- 
crats. Cleveland  had  come  to  the  front  as  a  result  first 
of  his  sweeping  victory  in  the  gubernatorial  election  in 
New  York  State  in  which  he  had  secured  over  a  very 
reputable  opponent,  Judge  Folger,  the  unexampled  major- 
ity of  192,000;  and  as  the  result  further  of  an  excellent 
record  in  his  work  as  Governor.  Blaine  was  the  natural 
leader  of  the  Republican  party.  He  was  a  man  of  excep- 
tional capacity  and  of  large  experience  in  politics  and  he 
had  shown  his  influence  and  power  in  the  management 
of  men.  He  was  not  only  a  most  successful  speaker  to 
popular  audiences  but  a  clear-headed  and  able  debater 
among  his  associates  first  in  the  House  and  later  in  the 
Senate.  He  knew  how  to  defend  the  special  tenets  of 
the  Republican  party  in  such  matters  as  the  protective 
system,  the  maintenance  and  the  extension  of  the  powers 
of  the  national  government,  etc.  He  had  in  full  measure 
the  peculiar  quality  described  as  personal  magnetism. 
The  men  with  whom  he  came  into  personal  association, 
even  those  who  differed  from  Blaine  politically,  or  who 
doubted  his  integrity,  found  it  difficult  to  resist  the  fasci- 
nation of  his  manner.  Against  such  a  candidate,  Grover 
Cleveland  worked  with  certain  material  disadvantages. 
He  was  a  man  whose  education  had  been  limited,  although 
after  attaining  his  majority  he  had  done  what  was  practic- 


96  Some  Americans 

able,  through  extended  reading,  to  make  up  his  deficien- 
cies. He  had  a  good  working  knowledge  of  the  practice 
of  the  law,  but'could  never  have  been  described  as  a  jurist. 
He  had  no  sense  of  humour  and  was  lacking  in  cultiva- 
tion. He  made  a  strong  circle  of  friends  who  felt  that 
they  could  place  implicit  confidence  in  Cleveland's  word 
and  in  the  courage  with  which  Cleveland  would  main- 
tain, at  whatever  risk  to  his  own  interests,  political  or 
other,  his  convictions  and  his  consistency.  Of  personal 
magnetism  he  had  no  trace.  If  a  man  was  an  opponent, 
it  was  Cleveland's  nature  to  accept  the  fact  and  to  treat 
him  as  such.  Even  with  the  members  of  his  own  party 
with  whom  he  might  find  himself  in  substantial  accord 
in  the  larger  number  of  the  issues  of  the  time,  Cleveland 
found  it  difficult  and  often  impossible  to  maintain  satis- 
factory relations  if  they  were  opposing  him  on  other  issues 
that  seemed  to  him  to  be  vital  and  the  right  solution  of 
which  he  believed  to  be  essential  for  the  interests  of  the 
nation.  A  leader  of  this  kind  may  impress  himself,  as 
Cleveland  impressed  himself,  upon  the  confidence  of  the 
people,  but  he  finds  difficulty  in  maintaining  in  good  work- 
ing order  the  organization  of  his  party.  It  is  rather  a 
matter  of  surprise  that  with  such  serious  difficulties  in 
the  way,  Cleveland  succeeded  not  once  but  three  times 
in  securing  nominating  majorities  in  the  convention  and 
in  two  elections,  popular  majorities  at  the  polls. 

In  this  election  of  1884,  the  Democratic  leader  possessed 
one  substantial  advantage  which,  after  a  very  closely 
contested  campaign,  finally  turned  the  scale  in  his  favour. 
Elaine's  official  record  was  by  no  means  without  reproach. 
It  was  in  evidence,  not  through  the  charges  of  opponents, 
but  through  his  own  letters  that  came  into  publication, 
that  he  had  utilized  his  opportunities  as  Speaker  of  the 
House  to  further  certain  business  undertakings  in  which 
he  had  himself  assumed  a  direct  interest.  The  interest 


The  Blaine-Cleveland  Campaign         97 

that  had  been  given  to  Elaine  was  in  fact  assigned  not  in 
consideration  of  money  paid,  but  for  the  sake  of  securing 
the  service  that  he  could  render  as  Speaker.  The  so- 
called  Mulligan  letters  which  brought  before  the  public 
the  record  of  Elaine's  relations  with  a  certain  railroad 
in  Arkansas,  and  other  similar  evidence  that  under  the 
searching  investigation  of  a  campaign  came  to  the  know- 
ledge of  the  voters,  proved  to  be  sufficient  to  cancel  the 
Republican  majorities  of  four  years  back  and,  in  giving 
to  the  Democrats  the  vote  of  New  York,  to  secure  the 
election  of  Cleveland.  New  York  State,  having  at  that 
time  about  nine  millions  of  voters,  gave  to  the  Democrats 
a  majority  that  was  counted  by  hundreds.  If  my  memory 
serves  me  rightly,  the  actual  figures  were  below  seven 
hundred.  In  New  York  as  in  certain  of  the  Western 
States,  the  opposition  to  Elaine  was  led  by  old-time  Re- 
publicans like  George  William  Curtis  and  Carl  Schurz. 
The  influence  of  the  latter  was  particularly  important  in 
the  communities  where  the  German  vote  was  large.  The 
result  showed  that  without  the  co-operation  of  these  old- 
time  Republican  leaders,  the  Democrats  would  in  fact  have 
had  no  chance  of  success. 

I  took  some  part,  under  the  leadership  of  Curtis,  in 
the  campaign  in  New  York.  I  remember  one  meeting 
that  was  brought  together  under  the  management  of  my 
brother  Kingman  in  the  town  of  Yonkers,  not  yet  a  city, 
at  which  I  had  to  bear  the  responsibility  as  chief  speaker. 
Yonkers  had  in  the  previous  election  gone  Republican 
by  six  or  seven  hundred.  In  November,  1884,  the  Demo- 
crats carried  the  town  by  something  less  than  three  hund- 
red. My  brother  Kingman  and  I  naturally  took  upon 
ourselves  the  credit  for  this  change  of  vote,  which,  as  the 
result  showed,  was  in  itself  sufficient  to  turn  the  scale 
in  the  State.  But  what  was  true  for  Yonkers  was  true 
for  Gravesend,  where  the  Republican  leader  was  a  man 


98  Some  Americans 

of  no  character  who  afterwards  found  lodgings  in  the  State 
prison,  and  in  a  number  of  other  communities  where  the 
Republican  hold  was  not  strong  or  where  the  direct  influ- 
ence of  speakers  like  Curtis  and  Schurz  was  brought  to 
bear. 

Grover  Cleveland.  I  was  introduced  to  Cleveland 
during  the  campaign  and  later  saw  something  of  him 
in  Washington.  I  came  to  have  a  cordial  respect  for 
the  sturdiness  of  the  man  and  to  realize  that  he  was 
the  kind  of  leader,  as  he  proved  to  be  the  kind  of 
President,  who  helps  to  make  a  good  political  standard 
for  the  country.  Attractive  personally  he  certainly  was 
not.  Mind  and  speech  worked  slowly  and  he  found  it 
very  difficult  to  be  even  graceful  in  his  relations  with 
men  who  were  working  loyally  on  his  behalf.  Like  many 
other  Americans,  however,  he  showed  that  it  was  pos- 
sible even  after  middle  life  to  develop  in  more  direc- 
tions than  one,  and  his  cultivation  (if  that  term  can 
properly  be  used)  was  furthered  and  his  manners  were 
certainly  improved  by  the  influence  of  the  charming  wo- 
man, his  ward,  Miss  Folsom,  whom  he  was  fortunate 
enough  to  secure  as  wife,  and  who  made  a  most  successful 
mistress  of  the  White  House. 

During  my  visits  to  Washington  in  1884-1888  in  con- 
nection with  the  work  for  international  copyright,  I  had 
the  opportunity  of  seeing  something  of  President  Cleve- 
land and  of  coming  to  know  his  charming  wife.  Cleve- 
land took  an  intelligent  interest  in  the  purpose  of  our 
copyright  undertaking,  and  while  we  did  not  succeed  in 
bringing  the  bill  to  a  vote  until  after  the  expiration  of 
his  term,  he  had  been  able,  particularly  through  his  re- 
lations with  certain  of  the  Congressional  leaders  from 
the  South,  to  secure  important  support  for  the  measure. 
He  was  quite  disappointed  that  the  bill  did  not  become 
law  over  his  signature.  Mrs.  Cleveland  was  also  very 


Grover  Cleveland  99 

much  interested  in  the  undertaking  and  was  hoping  that 
we  should  bring  our  contest  to  a  successful  issue  in  time 
to  secure  for  Cleveland's  administration  the  prestige  of  its 
accomplishment.  I  was  impressed  with  her  clear-headed 
knowledge  of  the  personalities  of  the  Congressmen  North 
and  South  and  with  her  clever  faculty  of  outlining  in  a 
few  words  the  characteristics  of  the  men  whom  we  were 
checking  off  on  our  list.  She  was  ready  to  use  her  social 
influence  (and  her  personal  charm  gave  her  a  very  large 
measure  of  influence  in  official  society)  for  the  purpose  of 
interesting  in  the  cause  of  international  copyright  certain 
Congressmen  who  knew  little  and  cared  nothing  about 
literary  property.  This  was,  in  fact,  the  state  of  mind  of 
a  large  number  of  the  Representatives  and  of  not  a  few  of 
the  Senators,  particularly  those  from  the  South  and  South- 
West.  A  man  who  had  no  conviction  on  a  pending  ques- 
tion could  well  be  excused  for  promising  a  hostess  like 
Mrs.  Cleveland  that  he  would  "look  into  the  matter"  and 
that  if  the  measure  was  one  in  which  she  was  interested, 
it  must  be  entitled  to  his  vote. 

I  gathered  the  impression  from  my  first  observations 
of  the  President  and  of  his  young  wife  that  the  marriage 
was  a  very  happy  one,  an  impression  that  was  confirmed 
in  my  later  relations  with  them  in  their  home  in  New  York 
and  by  my  knowledge  of  their  final  home  life  in  Princeton. 
Cleveland  was  a  great  citizen,  but,  taking  his  cultivation 
or  civilization  late  in  life,  he  never  succeeded  in  securing 
a  full  measure  of  social  refinement.  His  value  to  the 
country  was  in  the  possession  of  clear-cut  opinions  which 
became  convictions  to  be  held  to,  of  full  integrity  of  pur- 
pose and  unquestioned  courage.  If  he  believed  that  a 
thing  ought  to  be  done  and  that  he  was  the  man  to  do  it, 
no  question  as  to  the  possible  results  upon  his  political 
future  or  his  personal  relations  was  permitted  to  stand 
in  the  way.  His  leadership  in  the  furthering  of  the  cause 


ioo  Some  Americans 

of  Civil  Service  Reform  and  in  the  long  fight  that  was  car- 
ried on  in  behalf  of  honest  money  (in  Cleveland's  time  a 
fight  waged  against  the  supporters  of  the  silver  "dollar 
of  our  fathers"  that  meant  the  payment  of  debts  with 
fifty  cents  on  the  dollar)  were  great  contributions  to  the 
welfare  of  the  nation.  These  and  other  more  or  less 
similar  contests  showed  what  could  be  done  by  a  clear- 
headed and  courageous  executive  in  guiding  public  opinion 
and  in  accepting  the  responsibilities  of  a  real  leader.  The 
political  leaders  of  his  party  were  often  at  odds  with 
Cleveland  on  the  ground  of  his  lack  of  appreciation  of 
political  necessities  and  of  party  policies,  but  he  secured 
in  very  full  measure  the  confidence  of  the  people  at  large  in 
both  parties  and  the  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  service 
rendered  by  him  to  the  .country  has  grown  in  the  years 
since  his  death.  If  he  could  only  have  united  with  his 
clear  insight  and  courageous  convictions  a  little  more  tact 
and  grace  of  method  and  of  manner,  and  a  larger  readiness 
to  consider  the  personalities  of  the  other  fellows,  whether 
political  associates  or  opponents,  his  success  in  carrying 
out  the  causes  that  he  had  at  heart  would  have  been 
very  much  greater. 

I  had  later  an  instance  in  my  own  relations  with  him  of 
his  lack  of  grace  and  of  his  failure  to  understand  the 
real  requirements  of  the  situation.  After  his  defeat  for 
re-election,  Cleveland  had  accepted  an  invitation  to 
associate  himself  with  the  firm  of  which  Francis  L. 
Stetson,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  New  York  Bar,  was 
the  head.  It  was  stated  at  the  time  that  the  firm 
guaranteed  to  Cleveland  an  income  of  not  less  than 
$25,000  a  year.  Cleveland  had  had  comparatively 
little  practice  in  the  law  and  it  is  difficult  for  an  out- 
sider to  understand  how  his  legal  service  could  have 
been  made  to  earn  any  such  money.  Stetson  was  a  loyal 
friend  and  it  is  probable  that  this  business  arrangement 


Grover  Cleveland  101 

was  largely  influenced  by  his  desire  to  serve  the  great 
leader. 

My  firm  had  at  that  time  in  train  an  edition  of  the  works 
of  Thomas  Jefferson,  prepared  for  the  series  of  writings  of 
the  Fathers  of  the  Republic.  I  realized  that  Cleveland 
was  by  no  means  out  of  politics.  The  Democrats  were, 
in  fact,  at  the  beginning  of  the  four  years  of  Harrison's 
term,  referring  to  Cleveland  as  the  natural  candidate  for 
the  next  Presidency.  It  seemed  to  me  possible  that 
Cleveland  might  have  some  message  to  give  to  the  people 
indicating  his  view  of  the  political  situation,  or  a  state- 
ment of  what  the  Democratic  party  in  1888  ought  to 
stand  for.  It  occurred  to  me  that  such  message  might  be 
given  conveniently  and  with  dignity  as  an  introduction  to 
the  set  of  works  of  the  old  Democratic  leader  Jefferson. 
I  secured  an  appointment,  and  calling  at  Cleveland's  law 
office,  gave  half  an  hour  to  the  presentation  of  my  sug- 
gestion. I  said  frankly  that  I  did  not  imagine  that  the 
amount  that  we  should  pay  for  such  an  undertaking  would 
be  sufficient  to  offset  the  value  of  the  time  of  a  leading 
lawyer.  I  pointed  out,  however,  as  a  citizen  who  had 
voted  for  Cleveland  and  who  hoped  to  have  the  opportun- 
ity of  voting  for  him  again,  that  there  were  thousands  of 
citizens  throughout  the  country  who  would  be  keenly  in- 
terested in  securing  Mr.  Cleveland's  views  on  democracy; 
and  that  there  could  be  no  better  place  for  presenting 
these  views  than  in  an  analysis  of  the  democracy  of  which 
Jefferson  was  the  exponent,  with  the  necessary  explanation 
as  to  the  modifications  required  eighty  years  later  for  the 
changed  conditions  and  the  new  questions  to  be  decided. 
Cleveland  was  impressed  with  this  suggestion  and  told 
me  he  would  think  the  matter  over  and  would  give  me 
his  decision  a  day  later.  In  twenty-four  hours  I  had  report 
that  he  would  prepare  the  introduction  and  would  have 
it  in  readiness  at  the  date  that  I  had  specified,  within,  I 


102  Some  Americans 

think,  thirty  days.  The  paper  was  promptly  delivered 
a  day  before  the  date  fixed,  but  when  I  had  completed 
my  reading,  I  found  myself  quite  disappointed  as  to  the 
results  of  my  experiment.  There  would  be  an  incidental 
service  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  publishing  house  in 
associating  the  name  of  Cleveland  with  the  set  of  the 
works  of  Jefferson,  but  there  was  nothing  in  the  paper 
itself  that  could  give  to  the  readers  any  important  addi- 
tion to  the  principles  of  democracy  or  to  their  knowledge 
of  the  real  opinions  of  the  Democratic  candidate.  Acting, 
I  imagine,  under  the  influence  of  some  political  advisers, 
Cleveland,  instead  of  utilizing  the  essay  for  a  clear-cut 
statement,  similar  in  tone,  for  instance,  to  his  message  on 
the  "sixteen  to  one"  dollar,  had  devoted  his  pages  to  a 
series  of  generalizations  which  became  truisms.  The 
essay  was  heavy  without  containing  anything  of  weight. 
Under  the  circumstances,  I  was  not  in  a  position  to  criti- 
cize it  nor  could  I  even  suggest  any  modifications.  There 
was  no  ground  for  objecting  to  any  particular  statement, 
and  the  only  improvement  that  could  have  counted  in- 
volved a  rewriting  of  the  paper  with  a  much  greater 
freedom  of  action  and  without  the  feeling  that  it  was  ne- 
cessary to  avoid  controversial  topics.  I  proposed,  of 
course,  to  utilize  the  introduction  because  it  would  still 
have  business  value,  but  I  felt  disappointment,  not  only 
as  a  publisher  but  as  a  Democrat  interested  in  the  success 
and  in  the  character  of  a  great  Democratic  leader.  I 
wrote,  therefore,  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  the  essay 
and  saying  that  Mr.  Cleveland  would  receive  proofs  in 
due  course.  A  week  later  I  had  a  call  from  Carl  Schurz. 
Mr.  Schurz  was  an  admirer  and  strong  supporter  of  Cleve- 
land and  I  had  myself  for  a  number  of  years  had  with 
him  cordial  personal  relations.  I  admired  him  as  one 
of  the  ablest  and  one  of  the  best  citizens  of  the  land. 
Schurz  explained  that  he  had  come  as  an  ambassador  and 


Grover  Cleveland  103 

that  he  had  a  request  to  submit.  I  said  at  once  that  I 
could  hardly  think  of  the  possibility  of  failing  to  meet  any 
request  coming  to  me  from  Schurz.  "Well,"  he  said, 
"this  is  not  a  matter  for  myself.  I  come  to  you  on  behalf 
of  my  friend  Cleveland.  Since  he  sent  to  you  the  manu- 
script for  that  introduction  for  Jefferson,  he  has  given 
further  thought  to  the  material  and  he  is  not  satisfied 
with  it.  He  does  not  want  it  to  be  published.  He  thinks 
it  on  the  whole  better  that  he  should  not  attempt  at  this 
time  to  come  into  print  with  any  such  publication.  He 
realizes,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  has  entered  into  an 
engagement  with  you  on  the  matter  and  that  you  have 
the  right  to  insist  upon  this  engagement  being  carried  out. 
Learning  that  you  were  a  friend  of  mine,  he  asked  if  I 
could  induce  you  to  let  him  have  the  paper  back."  I 
replied  that  there  was  no  difficulty  in  the  matter  at  all; 
that  while  the  use  of  the  introduction  with  this  set  was 
important  from  the  publishing  point  of  view,  we  should  be 
entirely  unwilling  to  bring  the  material  into  print  if  Mr. 
Cleveland  now  found  objection.  I  said  that  any  such  re- 
quest would  have  been  agreed  to  at  once  if  made  by  him 
— Schurz — but  that  I  should  have  agreed  to  it  with  much 
more  satisfaction  if  Mr.  Cleveland,  instead  of  using  a 
representative,  had  applied  to  me  himself  either  by  word 
or  by  letter.  I  said  frankly  that  I  did  not  like  Cleveland's 
distrust  of  my  willingness  to  serve  him  and  that  I  thought 
his  action  in  the  matter  was  not  graceful.  Schurz  agreed 
with  me  in  this  and  reminded  me  that  Mr.  Cleveland's 
relations  with  the  world  outside  of  the  official  circles  of 
Buffalo,  Albany,  and  Washington  had  been  restricted. 
He  remarked  further:  "Cleveland  is  not  always  successful, 
Haven,  in  the  management  of  his  relations  with  men.  He 
is  not  quick  in  understanding  the  different  personalities 
with  which  he  has  to  do."  The  next  day  I  sent  the  intro- 
duction back  with  a  formal  note,  but  I  retained  a  copy 


104  Some  Americans 

which  naturally  has  never  been  utilized.  Within  a  week 
or  two,  I  met  Cleveland  at  a  dinner  gathering,  and  for  a 
few  minutes  was  with  him  alone.  I  supposed  that  he 
would  take  the  opportunity  of  giving  me  some  direct 
acknowledgment  of  my  readiness  to  meet  his  wishes  and 
to  free  him  from  a  troublesome  engagement.  He  made 
no  reference  to  the  matter  whatsoever  and  I  never  received 
any  word  of  thanks  or  of  appreciation.  I  was  able  in  this 
little  matter  to  realize  the  disappointment  of  some  of 
his  political  associates  who,  while  honouring  the  leader, 
found  him  a  difficult  and  an  ungracious  man  to  work  with 
and  to  work  for. 

Henry  Villard.  In  1893,  was  completed  the  last  link 
in  the  transcontinental  line  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Rail- 
road. The  company,  the  first  organization  of  which  had 
come  to  a  close  some  years  back  with  the  failure  of  Jay 
Cooke  &  Co.,  had  been  resuscitated  under  the  energetic 
management  of  Henry  Villard.  Villard  was  an  Alsatian 
by  birth  and  his  original  family  name  was  Hilgard.  He 
had  in  his  nature  a  strain  of  romance  that  was  rather 
exceptional  for  a  man  who  showed  later  such  distinguished 
business  capacity.  During  his  later  school  days  or  early 
college  days,  he  decided  under  the  influence  of  some  whim 
(incited  possibly  by  the  example  of  Richter's  hero  Zie- 
benkas  in  the  Fruit,  Flower,  and  Thorn  Pieces)  to  exchange 
names  with  a  school  friend.  The  name  Henry  Villard 
thus  adopted  he  brought  with  him  on  migrating  as  a 
youngster  to  the  United  States  and  retained  through  his 
future  life.  He  landed  without  friends  and  with  but  a 
trifle  in  money.  After  several  experiments  at  employ- 
ment, he  secured  work  in  Boston  as  secretary  to  the  Social 
Science  Association  and  found  himself  in  a  circle  of  Boston 
reformers  whose  ideals  and  mental  activities  were  in  the 
late  fifties  doing  so  much  to  excite  the  country.  He 
became  acquainted  with  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  who 


Henry  Villard  105 

shared  with  Wendell  Phillips  the  leadership  of  the  anti- 
slavery  party,  the  men  who  believed  that  rather  than  to 
endure  any  continued  responsibility  for  the  crime  of 
slavery,  it  was  better  that  the  Union  should  be  broken 
up,  and  that  the  slave  communities  should  be  driven  out 
to  manage  their  own  affairs  according  to  their  own  stand- 
ards. Young  Villard  was  fortunate  enough  to  win  as  his 
wife  the  beautiful  and  high-spirited  daughter  of  Garrison, 
and  Mrs.  Villard  showed  the  strength  of  her  qualities  and 
the  fineness  of  her  nature  as  well  in  the  earlier  days  of  the 
struggles  of  an  impecunious  and  hard-working  married 
life  as  in  the  later  years  in  which  she  had  the  satisfaction 
of  utilizing,  with  wise  counsel  and  with  a  large-hearted 
altruism,  in  all  kinds  of  benevolences  the  wealth  that 
had  been  secured  through  the  skill  and  energy  of  her 
Alsatian  husband. 

I  recall  one  incident  of  the  earlier  years  of  Fanny  Gar- 
rison before  young  Villard  had  come  into  her  experience. 
The  year  must  have  been  about  1860,  at  the  time  when,  in 
connection  with  the  enforcement  in  Boston  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  the  issues  between  the  anti-slavery  group  and 
the  conservative  merchants  who  wanted  to  see  "the 
Constitution  supported  and  the  laws  enforced"  had  be- 
come very  bitter  indeed.  Garrison  was  on  the  platform 
at  a  meeting  in  one  of  the  big  halls,  but  the  audience 
which  had  come  together  showed  itself  very  largely  an- 
tagonistic to  his  views  and  teachings  and  would  not  even 
give  him  a  hearing.  The  tumult  was  great  and  the 
prospect  of  carrying  on  the  meeting  seemed  to  be  hopeless. 
Someone  on  the  platform  suggested  that  they  might  try 
the  experiment  of  sending  the  girls  through  the  hall  to 
take  up  a  collection  and  Fanny  Garrison,  a  pretty  girl  of 
sixteen,  and  her  equally  charming  school  friend  Rebecca 
Shepard  (who  later  became  my  wife)  took  the  collection 
boxes  through  the  tumultuous  audience.  The  men  were 


io6  Some  Americans 

standing,  brandishing  their  fists,  shaking  sticks,  and  threat- 
ening all  kinds  of  penalties  upon  the  wicked  anti-slavery 
agitators,  but  the  girls,  unafraid,  made  their  way  through 
the  aisles  and  actually  returned  with  money;  and,  what 
was  for  the  leaders  more  important,  the  fact  that  those 
girls  had  been  willing  to  put  confidence  in  the  fairness 
and  decency  of  an  almost  riotous  mob,  brought  the  as- 
sembly to  some  sense  of  fairness  and  decency.  Garrison 
secured  a  hearing  then  and  later. 

Garrison  and  Phillips  were  heard  not  only  by  the  people 
in  Boston  but  by  their  fellow-citizens  throughout  the 
country.  And  impracticable  as  were  for  the  moment 
most  of  their  theories  and  recommendations,  it  is  the 
historic  fact  that  the  sense  of  indignation  brought  about 
throughout  the  mass  of  the  Northern  people  by  the  burn- 
ing words  and  bitter  invectives  of  these  teachers,  the 
prophets  who  were  making  clear  the  national  sin  of  slavery, 
played  a  very  large  part  in  creating  the  public  opinion  that 
finally  resulted  in  freeing  the  country  from  the  national 
curse.  The  work  of  prophets  nearly  always  includes 
overemphasis,  exaggeration,  injustice,  and  lack  of  con- 
sideration for  other  people,  but  such  work  is  essential 
if  masses  of  men  are  to  be  moved  with  a  great  impulse, 
and  with  a  full  measure  of  conviction;  and  without  an 
earnestness  of  conviction  and  a  burning  ardour  of  purpose, 
no  great  national  movement  has  ever  been  accomplished. 

The  later  career  of  Henry  Villard  was  varied.  After 
giving  some  years'  service  to  the  work  of  the  Social  Science 
Association,  he  went  into  journalism  and  was  one  of  the 
war  correspondents  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  He  saw 
what  may  be  called  "active  service"  (and  the  journalists 
at  the  front  had  their  full  measure  of  the  privations  and 
risks  that  came  to  the  soldiers)  with  Grant's  army  at 
Pittsburg  Landing  and  at  Chattanooga;  and  in  his  volume 
of  reminiscences,  he  has  given  vivid  and  dramatic  accounts 


Henry  Villard  107 

of  the  battles  and  characteristic  pictures  of  leaders  with 
whom  he  came  into  contact.  After  the  war,  he  took  a  trip 
to  the  far  North-West  in  behalf  of  the  Tribune  and  of  some 
Chicago  paper  for  the  purpose  of  reporting  on  the  condi- 
tions of  the  region  that  was  to  be  opened  up  by  the  North- 
ern Pacific  Railroad  which  was  then  in  plan.  The 
information  he  secured  as  to  the  potential  wealth  and  pos- 
sibilities of  the  country  gave  him  a  large  confidence  in  the 
coming  prosperity  of  the  communities  that  were  to  be 
developed  when  the  communications  were  completed  and 
in  the  profits  that  were  to  be  secured  by  the  railroads  that 
would  control  these  communications.  He  was  able,  after 
the  failure  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Co.,  which  involved  the 
breaking  down  of  the  first  Northern  Pacific  Company, 
to  impress  capitalists  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
including  an  important  group  in  Berlin,  with  the  possibili- 
ties of  the  railroad  and  with  his  own  capacity  for  manage- 
ment or  at  least  for  leadership  in  this  scheme.  As  far  as 
it  is  possible  to  judge  at  this  time,  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century  after  the  event,  Villard's  calculations  were  on 
the  whole  well  founded.  His  enthusiastic  optimism  im- 
paired, however,  the  value  of  his  estimates  as  to  the  ex- 
pense of  the  construction  of  the  road,  which  had  some  great 
engineering  difficulties  to  contend  with,  and  as  to  the  time 
required  for  building  up  for  it  a  profitable  business. 
In  1893,  the  construction  of  the  road  was  completed,  but  a 
few  months  thereafter  the  second  Northern  Pacific  went 
into  bankruptcy.  A  large  portion  of  Mr.  Villard's  for- 
tune was  swept  away  and  he  came  under  a  full  measure  of 
criticism  on  the  part  of  friends  and  acquaintances  who 
on  the  strength  of  his  optimism  had  risked  their  money 
in  the  undertaking.  With  those  who  knew  the  man,  no 
question  could  be  raised  as  to  his  integrity  of  purpose  and 
of  action,  but  his  opportunities  as  a  leader  of  finance 
were  at  an  end. 


io8  Some  Americans 

One  portion  of  his  scheme  for  the  promotion  of  the 
railroad  company  deserved  a  better  fate.  The  company 
had  secured  in  the  contract  with  the  general  government 
an  allotment  of  alternate  sections  of  government  land 
in  the  region  through  which  it  passed.  This  land  had  a 
varied  value,  but  much  of  it  was  valuable  for  timber,  for 
arable  purposes,  or  for  water  power.  The  future  of  the 
road  depended  upon  hastening  the  settlement  of  the  coun- 
try so  as  to  insure  the  creation  of  products  which  could 
find  a  market  only  by  means  of  the  road  itself.  Villard 
organized,  under  the  leadership  of  Raphael  Pumpelly,  a 
well-known  mining  engineer,  a  corps  of  investigators  who 
were  to  take  what  might  be  called  a  statistical  census  of 
the  resources  of  the  region  that  was  to  be  opened  up,  and 
in  part  controlled,  by  the  new  road.  Experts  in  different 
divisions  of  research  were  charged  with  the  work  of  report- 
ing upon  the  arable  land,  the  mining  resources,  the  timber 
supplies,  and  the  water  power.  It  was  the  plan  to  put 
into  shape  a  series  of  reports,  absolutely  trustworthy  in 
their  statistics  and  presented  in  good  literary  form,  that 
would  be  utilized  by  settlers  and  by  investors.  The  pre- 
paration and  the  printing  of  these  reports  would  involve  an 
outlay  of  about  $150,000.  The  properties  that  were  to 
be  brought  into  sale  by  means  of  trustworthy  information 
made  available  for  the  markets  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic 
and  for  the  use  of  settlers  and  investors,  had  an  aggre- 
gate value  of  many  millions.  The  outlay  seemed,  there- 
fore, to  be  fairly  well  justified  by  the  business  possibilities 
and  by  the  business  necessities.  The  financiers  who  after 
the  failure  reorganized  the  road  under  the  presidency  of 
Mr.  Billings,  decided  rather  hastily  that  the  so-called 
"cyclopaedia  of  resources"  was  one  more  of  Villard's 
"vague,  visionary  schemes "  and  they  brought  the  whole 
undertaking  to  a  close.  Pumpelly  begged  that  he  might 
be  allowed  a  sufficient  sum  of  money  at  least  to  enable  his 


John  Bigelow  109 

assistants  to  work  up  their  field  notes,  in  the  collection  of 
which  notes  a  considerable  expense  had  already  been 
incurred.  He  offered  to  give  his  own  service  without 
compensation  (a  period  of  perhaps  one  year  would  be 
required)  in  order  to  preserve  the  results  of  these  prelim- 
inary surveys.  Mr.  Billings  and  his  associates  declined 
the  proposition  rather  curtly  and  the  field  notes  collected 
by  a  dozen  or  more  workers,  which  could  be  made  avail- 
able only  if  transcribed  by  the  men  who  had  taken  them, 
were  thrown  away.  The  region  has  during  the  past  ten 
years  attracted  an  increasing  number  of  settlers  and  the 
sections  which  were  the  property  of  the  road  have  from 
year  to  year  found  sale.  There  seems  no  question,  how- 
ever, but  that  the  sales  of  land,  the  development  of  settle- 
ments, and  the  furthering  of  investments  would  have 
received  an  enormous  impetus  if  the  volumes  of  reports 
as  planned  by  Pumpelly  could  have  been  completed  and 
brought  before  the  public. 

John  Bigelow.  In  December,  1911,  I  was  sent  for  by 
my  old  friend,  John  Bigelow.  He  desired  a  word  of 
counsel  in  regard  to  the  arrangements  for  the  publication 
of  the  final  volumes  of  his  memoirs,  and  with  considera- 
tion for  the  pressure  on  the  hours  of  a  busy  publisher,  he 
asked  me  to  be  with  him  at  the  time  of  lunch. 

Thirty  years  earlier,  at  the  time  when  Bigelow  was  edit- 
ing for  my  firm  the  writings  of  Franklin,  he  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  appointing  the  lunch  hour  at  his  pleasant 
home  in  Gramercy  Park  as  the  time  for  talking  over  edi- 
torial and  publishing  details.  In  this  month  of  December, 
1911,  Mr.  Bigelow  was  in  his  ninety-sixth  year.  His 
eyes  were  clear,  his  hearing  was  perfect,  his  voice,  while 
occasionally  a  little  broken,  was  in  good  tone,  and  his 
understanding  was,  as  always,  incisive  and  comprehensive. 
We  all  knew  that  he  had  during  the  past  year  been  losing 
strength,  but  he  looked  to  me  so  sturdy  at  the  time  of  this 


no  Some  Americans 

interview  that  I  felt  no  apprehension  for  the  immediate 
future.  It  proved,  however,  to  be  the  last  word  I  had 
with  my  old  friend.  A  few  days  later,  he  had  another 
attack  of  the  trouble  that  ended  his  life. 

I  had  as  a  youngster  been  brought  by  my  father  into 
relations  with  Mr.  Bigelow,  who,  first  by  reason  of  his 
association  with  Bryant,  and  later  by  his  commanding 
presence,  charming  personality,  wide  range  of  knowledge, 
and  keen  interest  in  public  affairs,  had  won  a  high  place 
among  the  leaders  of  society  and  of  affairs  in  New  York. 
The  five  volumes  of  reminiscences  which  were  brought 
into  print  in  1910-13  present  a  faithful  record  of  the  career 
of  an  American  of  the  best  type.  Bigelow's  service  was 
always  capable,  always  public-spirited,  and  at  times  excep- 
tionally important.  He  had  the  opportunity,  first  as 
consul-general,  later  as  charge,  and  finally  as  minister  in 
Paris  during  the  strenuous  years  of  the  war,  of  rendering 
most  distinctive  and  valuable  aid  to  the  cause  of  the 
Republic.  The  sympathies  of  Louis  Napoleon  and  his 
associates,  and  of  the  haute  finance  of  Paris  (which,  with  the 
co-operation  of  Morny  and  other  associates  of  the  Emperor, 
was  largely  interested  in  the  speculative  possibilities  of 
the  control  of  Mexico  by  France)  were  almost  entirely 
on  the  side  of  the  Confederates.  It  was  the  expectation 
of  official  France  and  of  speculative  France- — and  the  official 
France  of  the  Second  Empire  was  very  speculative — that 
our  great  Republic  was  to  be  broken  up.  The  Confeder- 
ate representatives  in  Europe  naturally,  and  very  properly, 
made  full  use  of  this  disposition  on  the  part  of  Louis 
Napoleon.  They  had  an  assured  footing  in  Paris  and  in 
the  great  naval  stations.  They  had  at  one  time  in  prepa- 
ration in  the  French  dockyards  no  less  that  five  vessels 
designed  for  the  Confederate  navy.  It  was  evident  that 
the  instructions  given  to  the  officials  at  the  ports  were 
very  similar  to  those  that  had  been  issued  by  Vergennes 


John  Bigelow  HI 

from  1776  on  to  the  officials  of  the  government  of  Louis 
XVI.  Vergennes  intended  that  all  facilities  should  be 
extended  to  Franklin  and  to  Beaumarchais  for  the  distri- 
buting of  supplies  for  Washington's  army,  that  could 
be  given  without  a  direct  break  with  Great  Britain. 
In  like  manner  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  while  speaking  fair  to 
Minister  Dayton  and  to  the  much  more  energetic  and 
persistent  Consul,  Bigelow,  as  to  the  absolute  neutrality 
of  the  Empire,  was  with  his  left  hand  extending  all  pos- 
sible facilities  for  the  fitting  out  from  French  ports  of 
Confederate  cruisers.  Bigelow  was,  however,  so  watch- 
ful and  so  energetic  in  the  collection  of  evidence  that,  first 
with  one  ship  and  then  with  another,  he  succeeded  in 
making  it  impossible  for  the  Confederates  to  get  a  vessel 
equipped  and  started  from  a  French  port  without  such 
breach  of  neutrality  as  would  have  meant  an  absolute 
state  of  war  between  France  and  the  United  States. 
This  Louis  Napoleon  was  not  prepared  for  unless  and 
until  he  could  secure,  as  he  was  always  hoping  through 
Palmerston  to  be  able  to  secure,  the  co-operation  of  Great 
Britain.  If  I  remember  rightly,  but  one  Confederate 
cruiser,  the  Stonewall  Jackson,  got  away  from  a  French 
port.  The  pernicious  Alabama  was  given  hospitality  in 
Cherbourg,  and  if  she  had  been  disabled  instead  of  being 
sunk,  it  is  probable  that  she  would  have  been  permitted 
to  refit  under  French  guns.  But  the  fighting  of  the  Kear- 
sarge  was  so  effectively  managed  that  there  was  nothing 
left  to  refit. 

Mr.  Bigelow  made  his  residence  for  some  time  in  Passy, 
a  few  miles  from  Paris,  and  he  was  fortunate  enough  there 
to  discover  the  original  manuscript  of  the  autobiography 
of  Benjamin  Franklin.  The  duplicate  of  Franklin's 
manuscript  had  been  taken  to  England  by  his  grandson 
William  Temple  Franklin  and  by  him  had  been  edited  for 
the  press.  The  grandson  had  done  for  the  autobiography 


ii2  Some  Americans 

what  he  had  done  for  the  letters,  eliminated,  extended,  and 
smoothed  down.  The  book  had  too  much  character  to 
be  spoiled  even  by  such  editing  and  it  had  remained  a 
classic  from  the  date  of  its  first  printing;  but  it  was  only 
through  Mr.  Bigelow's  good  fortune  and  good  judgment 
that  the  unexpurgated  and  complete  text  was  finally 
brought  into  print. 

Bigelow  was  a  close  friend  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  and  was 
a  strong  supporter  of  Tilden's  claim  for  the  Presidency  at 
the  contested  election  of  1876.  If  Tilden  had  been  inau- 
gurated, Bigelow  would  have  been  Secretary  of  State  and 
the  country  could  not  have  secured  the  service  of  a  man 
better  equipped  for  the  post.  He  possessed  the  knowledge 
of  men,  conditions,  and  affairs  in  Europe,  and  he  possessed 
also  a  calm-minded  judgment  and  freedom  from  sub- 
jectivity that  go  to  the  making  of  a  statesman. 

For  a  long  series  of  years  preceding  his  death,  Mr.  Bige- 
low had  been  the  president  of  the  Century  Club,  and  in 
the  last  year  of  his  life,  a  committee  of  which  he  was 
chairman  had  brought  to  completion  the  task  of  the  erec- 
tion of  a  monument  to  Bigelow's  old  associate,  Bryant. 
This  monument  was  inaugurated  in  Bryant  Park  back  of 
the  Library  a  few  weeks  before  Mr.  Bigelow's  death.  If 
he  had  been  strong  enough  to  appear  in  the  open,  the 
transfer  of  the  monument  to  the  city  would  have  been 
made  by  him  as  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  as  the 
president  of  the  Century  Club,  and  as  the  oldest  living 
associate  of  the  dead  poet. 

The  Centurions  ought  now  to  put  in  train  plans  for  the 
erection  of  a  monument  that  will  help  to  preserve  for 
New  York  the  memory  of  the  beautiful  features  and  the 
dignified  presence  of  their  dead  president,  who  was  a 
great  citizen,  and  a  fine  type  of  the  American  gentleman. 

William  H.  Baldwin.  Each  generation  of  citizens  pro- 
duces a  group  of  men  who  are  free  from  self  seeking  and 


William  H.  Baldwin  113 

who,  recognizing  their  obligations  to  the  community, 
are  prepared  to  give  their  work  and  their  capacities  for 
doing  what  may  be  in  their  power  for  the  service  of  their 
fellow-men.  I  am  enough  of  an  optimist  to  believe  that 
the  percentage  of  patriotic  citizens  of  this  class  does  in- 
crease from  generation  to  generation.  I  do  not  believe 
that  there  is  any  very  great  change  hi  the  basis  of  human 
nature  or  of  the  motives  that  influence  human  action.  I 
do  think,  however,  that  in  the  development  of  the  Repub- 
lic, there  comes  about  a  better  understanding  or  a  fuller 
understanding  on  the  part  of  a  larger  number  of  men, 
first  as  to  the  possibilities  within  their  reach  for  good 
citizenship,  and  secondly  as  to  the  obligation,  not  only  to 
their  fellow-citizens  but  to  themselves,  to  do  to  the  full 
extent  of  their  power  what  is  placed  within  their  reach. 
It  is  certainly  the  case  that  since,  during  the  years  after 
the  war,  I  first  came  into  touch  with  citizens'  work,  I  have 
come  to  know  a  larger  number  of  men  with  this  kind  of 
standard  of  life  and  of  ideals.  The  great  leaders,  the  men 
whose  lives  could  safely  be  utilized  as  examples  and  as 
inspiration,  men  such  as  Curtis  and  Schurz,  come  at 
intervals,  and  probably  about  so  many  to  the  century. 
In  looking  back  over  the  record  of  the  great  citizens,  I 
recall  the  calculation  of  the  mathematician,  Proctor,  who 
pointed  out  that,  in  every  thousand  whist  hands,  there 
will  be  just  so  many  trumps.  It  is  the  natural  feeling,  as 
these  leaders  die,  that  they  are  not  being  replaced.  There 
may  be,  there  often  are,  gaps,  periods  when  there  seems  to 
be  an  absence  of  strong  men.  The  precise  times  of  their 
coming  must  be  uncertain  but  no  generation  is  left  without 
leadership.  The  factor  that  has  changed  from  half-cen- 
tury to  half -century  or  from  decade  to  decade  is  the  num- 
ber or  proportion  of  faithful  followers;  of  the  men  who 
are  not  going  to  achieve  national  fame  or  even  perhaps  to 
become  known  outside  of  their  immediate  home  commun- 
s 


H4  Some  Americans 

ity.  But  these  men  will  accept  ideals  and  will  recognize 
leaders,  and  it  is  they  who  give  the  labour  and  the  backing, 
in  votes,  in  service,  or  in  money,  without  which  support 
the  best  of  leadership  cannot  make  itself  felt. 

My  friend  William  H.  Baldwin  would,  as  those  who 
knew  him  have  felt  confident,  if  years  had  been  spared  to 
him,  have  come  to  be  a  leader  of  national  reputation.  He 
was  in  fact  able  in  the  short  life  that  had  been  allotted  to 
him  (he  died  at  the  age  of  forty-two)  to  make  himself 
felt  throughout  Greater  New  York,  while  his  name  and 
his  example  were  quoted  in  many  other  communities  where 
similar  problems  were  being  tackled. 

I  never  knew  a  man  who  had  such  absolute  self-abnega- 
tion, whose  thought  was  so  surely  concentrated  upon  the 
work  to  be  done,  and  whose  selection  of  work  was  so  uni- 
formly not  for  the  advancement  of  self  but  for  the  good  of 
his  fellows.  Baldwin's  business  career  was  that  of  a  rail- 
road man  and  his  advancement  had  been  rapid  as  his 
successive  chiefs  came  to  appreciate  his  clear-headed  ex- 
ecutive capacity,  his  suggestiveness,  his  enterprise,  and 
above  all  his  absolute  integrity  of  purpose  and  his  devo- 
tion to  his  task.  He  made  himself  so  useful,  one  might 
say  so  indispensable,  to  the  companies  by  which  he  was 
employed  and  to  his  immediate  superiors,  he  did  so  much 
within  the  official  hours,  that  his  superiors  were  more  than 
ready  to  permit  him  to  use  not  only  the  hours  reserved  for 
himself  but  certain  time  which  technically  belonged  to 
his  business,  for  the  general  service  of  his  State.  He  was 
active  in  work  for  the  education  of  the  coloured  people  and 
was  a  valued  associate  in  the  direction  of  Tuskegee  and 
Hampton.  He  had  taken  part  in  a  number  of  the  organi- 
zations which  were  watching  over  the  problems  of  the  big 
city  and  were  trying  to  do  something  to  organize  a  better 
system  of  government.  He  had  given  practical  co-opera- 
tion in  furthering  the  principles  and  the  practices  of  the 


William  H.  Baldwin  115 

Civil  Service  Reform  Association  and  was  able,  when 
president  of  the  Long  Island  Railroad,  to  present  an 
example  of  a  great  business  conducted  on  the  basis  of  an 
intelligent  civil  service. 

Almost  his  last  public  work  was  given  as  chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  Fifteen ;  this  committee  was  organized 
as  the  result  of  an  initiative  in  the  Chamber  of  Commerce 
for  the  investigation  of  vice  problems  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  and  more  particularly  to  trace  the  relation,  and  to 
stamp  out  the  relation,  between  the  police  officials  with 
the  Tammany  organization  behind  them  and  the  concerns 
that  were  utilizing  vice  as  a  commercial  possibility.  To 
the  work  of  this  committee  Baldwin  devoted  during  the 
space  of  two  years  all  the  hours  that  could  be  spared  from 
his  railroad  duties  and  that  were  not  already  assigned  to 
other  tasks  for  the  public  service.  The  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Company,  which  had  recently  come  into  posses- 
sion of  the  Long  Island  road,  had  at  the  time  important 
construction  work  in  train  in  Brooklyn  and  was  just  be- 
ginning the  great  operations  which  resulted  in  the  Hudson 
River  tube  and  the  Seventh  Avenue  Station  in  Manhat- 
tan. It  was,  therefore,  at  many  points  exposed  to  attacks 
or  "strikes"  from  city  officials  on  both  sides  of  the  river 
and  from  the  men  behind  to  whom  these  officials  owed  their 
posts.  Indignation  arose  in  Tammany  Hall  at  the  at- 
tempts of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen,  under  the  incisive 
leadership  of  Baldwin,  to  cut  off  certain  valuable  sources 
of  revenue,  supplies  of  money  secured  under  the  Tammany 
policy  of  selling  the  right  to  break  the  law,  moneys  that 
came  from  bad  houses,  pool-rooms,  drinking  saloons, 
and  gambling  hells  of  one  kind  or  another,  and  the 
powers  in  charge  of  the  city  sent  word  to  the  Pennsyl- 
vania managers  that  the  operations  of  the  road,  and 
particularly  the  construction  undertakings  on  both  sides 
of  the  East  River,  would  be  seriously  hampered  unless 


n6  Some  Americans 

they  called  off  from  his  impertinent  undertakings  their 
man  Baldwin. 

Baldwin  was  called  to  Philadelphia  to  report  to  the  board 
of  directors,  or  to  some  committee  of  the  board,  in  regard 
to  the  operations  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen.  He  told 
them  frankly  what  we  had  already  accomplished  and 
what  we  were  trying  to  do.  He  admitted  that  our  opera- 
tions were  of  necessity  annoying,  and  that  he  hoped  they 
would  become  disastrous,  to  the  policy  and  to  the  treasury 
of  Tammany  Hall.  He  admitted  further  that  the  Tam- 
many officials  were  in  a  position  to  cause  interference  to 
the  development  of  the  business  of  the  Pennsylvania  and 
Long  Island  roads.  He  pointed  out,  however,  that  if 
the  great  corporation  began  to  purchase  immunity  from 
interference  from  the  Tammany  leaders,  there  would  be 
no  end  to  the  development  of  the  claims  of  Tammany. 
He  admitted  the  risks  and  the  difficulties  of  the  fight,  but 
he  claimed  that  such  fight  had  got  to  come  sometime  and 
that  he  believed  it  would  be  for  the  interest  of  the  road 
to  have  it  come  at  once  and  have  the  matter  settled. 
"Sooner  or  later,"  he  said,  "the  people  of  New  York  will 
not  be  willing  to  permit  the  transportation  facilities  of 
which  the  city  is  so  much  in  need  to  be  blocked  through 
the  greed  of  the  Tammany  gang  or  by  the  malfeasance  of 
the  city  officials.  Admitting  finally  that  there  might  in 
his  case  be  a  question  of  divided  duty,  Baldwin  placed  his 
resignation  in  the  hands  of  the  directors.  He  went  back 
to  New  York  without  securing  their  decision.  The  prob- 
lem was  perplexing  and  needed  to  be  thought  over,  but 
within  forty-eight  hours  he  received  word  that  his  course 
was  approved  by  the  board;  that  they  could  trust  his 
discretion  and  that  they  had  confidence  that  whatever 
his  zeal  for  his  volunteer  work  in  the  committee,  he  would 
never  be  recreant  to  his  obligations  to  the  company.  The 
company  decided  with  him  that  it  was  as  well  to  have  the 


William  H.  Baldwin  117 

questions  with  the  blackmailers  brought  to  a  prompt  issue. 
They  had  many  millions  at  stake,  but  the  interest  of  the 
city  was  even  larger  than  that  of  the  railroad.  The  inner 
history  of  the  great  construction  operations  of  the  rail- 
road is  of  course  not  a  matter  of  public  record.  It  is  my 
own  belief,  however,  from  word  that  has  come  to  me  from 
people  claiming  to  know,  that  the  company  did  succeed 
in  completing  its  construction  without  the  payment  of 
any  blackmail  whatever  and  that,  in  so  doing,  it  made  an 
invaluable  precedent  for  any  later  operations  of  other 
companies. 

The  investigations  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  were 
useful  not  only  in  putting  before  the  public  a  fuller  know- 
ledge of  what  had  before  been  vaguely  understood,  of  the 
infamous  traffic  carried  on  by  city  officials  in  the  protec- 
tion of  vice,  but  in  stamping  out  definitely,  at  least  for  the 
time,  certain  of  the  more  serious  of  the  abominations  that 
were  being  described.  Such  work  must  of  course  be  done 
over  again  from  decade  to  decade,  and  we  may  have  con- 
fidence that  men  like  Baldwin  will  be  found  to  accept  the 
leadership. 

Shortly  after  Baldwin's  death  a  meeting  was  held  in 
Cooper  Union  to  commemorate  his  service  and  to  empha- 
size the  inspiration  that  such  a  life  should  have  for  others. 
The  great  hall  was  filled,  the  audience  comprising  not 
only  hundreds  of  leading  citizens  who  had  been  called 
upon  by  Baldwin  for  co-operation  and  who  had  knowledge 
of  what  he  had  accomplished,  but  thousands  of  others  of 
the  classes  that  he  had  striven  to  benefit.  The  addresses 
delivered  (it  was  my  privilege  to  be  one  of  the  speakers) 
and  the  sympathetic  interest  of  this  great  audience  con- 
stituted testimony  to  the  importance  of  the  life  of  a  man 
who  had  never  occupied  a  public  station.  Baldwin's 
efforts  had  been  largely  tentative  and  his  work  was,  of 
necessity,  left  unfinished,  but  his  character  and  ideals, 


n8  Some  Americans 

his  unselfishness  and  clear-sighted  standard  of  citizenship 
had  been  made  apparent,  and  these  were  made  clear,  as 
it  was  the  privilege  of  those  who  knew  the  man  and  his 
work  to  make  them  clear,  for  a  lesson  and  for  an  inspiration 
for  his  fellow-citizens. 

Roger  A.  Pryor.  Judge  Pryor's  characteristic  face  had 
been  familiar  to  me  for  a  number  of  years  before  I  had 
an  opportunity  of  coming  into  personal  relations  with 
the  man.  My  first  word  with  him  was  as  late  as  1911. 
At  that  time  he  was  eighty-six  years  old.  He  was  the 
oldest  Confederate  veteran  in  New  York  and  probably 
the  oldest  remaining  of  the  men  of  prominence. 

I  recall  that  in  his  varied  service  in  the  Confederate 
army,  he  enjoyed  the  unique  distinction  of  being  the  one 
soldier  who,  having  resigned  as  a  brigadier,  enlisted,  the 
day  after  his  resignation  was  accepted,  as  a  private.  He 
was  evidently  a  man  of  impatient  temperament  and  he 
was  ready  to  throw  up  his  position  as  a  brigade  com- 
mander in  order  to  emphasize  his  discontent  with  the 
manner  in  which  his  brigade  had  been  ordered  about  and 
distributed.  I  judge  that  while  undoubtedly  a  good  fighter 
(his  courage  had  never  been  questioned),  he  could  hardly 
be  called  a  good  commander.  It  is  a  truism  that  if  a  man 
is  to  make  his  abilities  as  a  leader  serviceable,  he  must  be 
prepared  to  accept  without  undue  impatience  even  incon- 
sistent and  unreasonable  orders  from  other  commanders. 
In  talking  over  with  me  his  war  experiences,  the  Judge 
recalled  his  feeling  of  indignation  at  being  taken  prisoner 
by  one  of  our  pickets  at  a  time  when  he  had  in  view  only 
an  exchange  of  papers,  and  was,  in  fact,  waving  a  news- 
paper as  a  flag-of -truce.  Such  exchanges  of  newspapers, 
tobacco,  and  other  portable  articles  did  go  on  between  the 
picket  lines  at  various  times  during  the  war  and  the  ar- 
rangements arrived  at  by  mutual  understanding  were, 
with  hardly  an  exception,  carried  out  in  good  faith.  Our 


Roger  A.  Pry  or  119 

own  commanders  had  reason,  however,  to  be  critical  from 
time  to  time  of  a  practice  of  exchanges  which  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  Rebel  leaders  late  issues  of  Washington 
and  New  York  papers  many  of  which  contained  informa- 
tion or  plausible  guesses  as  to  the  movements  of  our  troops 
or  the  plans  of  the  Administration.  The  news  printed 
in  the  Richmond  papers  was  so  closely  supervised  by  the 
authorities  that  the  information  obtainable  from  these 
was  comparatively  unimportant.  In  December,  1864, 
at  the  time  of  the  capture  of  Pry  or,  who  was  then  a  ser- 
geant of  cavalry,  General  Meade  had  given  orders  that 
no  further  exchanges  or  confabs  between  the  picket  lines 
should  be  permitted.  Pry  or  had,  of  course,  no  knowledge 
of  these  orders  and  he  claimed,  and  with  justice,  that  the 
previous  general  understanding  ought  to  have  been  car- 
ried out  in  his  case.  It  happened,  however,  that  a  few 
weeks  before  Pryor's  capture  by  our  men,  Captain  Henry 
S.  Burrage  of  a  Massachusetts  regiment  had  been  taken 
prisoner  in  precisely  the  same  manner  at  a  point  a  little 
farther  along  the  line.  Burrage  was  in  prison  with  me 
during  the  last  winter  of  the  war  and  I  heard  from  him 
in  1864  the  same  kind  of  growl  at  the  lack  of  decent  fair- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  Confederate  commander  that  came 
to  me  forty -odd  years  later  from  Judge  Pryor. 

The  Judge  told  me  that  he  had  a  narrow  escape  from 
being  hanged  as  a  spy,  not  because  of  any  action  when 
he  was  captured  in  proper  butternut  uniform,  but  because 
of  previous  operations.  His  old  home  had  been  in  the 
Chickahominy  region  and  he  was,  of  course,  quite  familiar 
with  the  country.  He  had  utilized  this  familiarity  during 
the  earlier  years  of  the  war  for  scouting  in  citizen's  clothes 
behind  the  Federal  lines.  He  had,  however,  never  before 
been  captured  and  it  was  a  nice  question  of  war  regula- 
tions whether  a  man  taken  prisoner  in  uniform  could  be 
held  responsible  for  previous  actions  in  which  he  had  un- 


i2o  Some  Americans 

doubtedly  filled  the  mission  of  a  spy.  He  was  confined 
first  in  the  old  Capitol  prison  in  Washington,  and  later 
in  Fort  Lafayette  in  New  York  harbour.  He  was  on  the 
list  for  execution,  partly  as  I  understood  on  the  ground  of 
his  spying  operations  in  Virginia,  and  partly  as  an  offset  to 
a  hanging  that  was  about  to  be  committed  of  one  of  our 
men  whose  service  had  been  more  or  less  "double"  in 
character,  and  who  was  held  in  Charleston.  Pryor  had, 
before  the  war,  done  journalistic  service  in  Richmond 
and  in  Washington  and  had  many  friends  among  the 
Northern  newspaper  men.  Some  of  these  tried  to  interest 
in  his  behalf  Secretary  Stanton,  but  without  success.  Mr. 
Stanton  took  the  ground  that  Mr.  Pryor  was  a  man  "emi- 
nently fit  to  be  hanged."  They  then  applied,  and  with 
better  success,  to  Lincoln.  They  recalled  to  Lincoln  that 
Pryor,  when  a  brigade  commander,  had  paroled,  instead 
of  sending  into  Richmond,  a  lot  of  wounded  men,  sur- 
geons, and  nurses,  that  he  had  captured  in  the  retreat  of 
Pope's  army  from  Chantilly.  Pryor  believed  that  in  so 
doing  he  had  undoubtedly  saved  the  lives  of  a  number  of 
our  soldiers  who  could  not  have  stood  the  strain  of  Belle 
Isle  or  Andersonville.  They  also  emphasized  the  excep- 
tional nature  of  his  capture.  Lincoln,  not  for  the  first 
time  in  his  management  of  affairs,  overruled  Stanton. 
He  wrote  on  his  visiting  card  an  order  to  the  major  in 
command  of  Lafayette  to  release  Pryor  with  instructions 
for  him  to  report  to  Washington.  The  Judge  spoke  appre- 
ciatively of  his  treatment  in  Lafayette.  It  was  evident 
from  what  he  said  that  the  food  was  a  good  deal  better 
than  what  he  had  been  receiving  in  Virginia  either  as  a 
sergeant  or  as  a  brigadier. 

After  the  war  was  over,  he  joined  a  group  of  enterprising 
Southerners  who  tried  to  get  a  livelihood  in  New  York. 
With  no  money  and  with  but  the  beginnings  of  legal 
training,  he  managed  by  persistent  hard  work,  and  also 


Roger  A.  Pryor  121 

by  an  ability  that  must  have  been  exceptional,  to  make  a 
place  for  himself  among  the  lawyers  of  New  York.  The 
bottom  of  a  profession  in  a  great  metropolis  is  always 
crowded,  but  there  is  usually  room  near  the  top.  Pryor 
got  near  enough  to  the  top  to  secure  one  of  the  Supreme 
Court  judgeships,  in  which  as  I  understand  his  years  of 
service  were  in  every  way  honourable.  It  stands  to  the 
credit  of  John  Kelly  and  other  managers  of  Tammany 
Hall  that  they  were  able  to  recognize  the  practical  value 
to  the  political  prestige  and  to  the  continued  influence  of 
the  Tammany  organization,  in  securing  the  service  of  the 
brains  and  the  personality  of  some  of  the  noteworthy 
Southerners  who  made  their  homes  in  New  York  after  the 
war  was  over.  These  men  from  the  South  were  Democrats 
by  heritage  and  their  war  experiences  made  it  natural  for 
them  to  work  against  the  Republican  party  even  when  the 
elections  were  concerned  only  with  local  matters  in  the 
city  of  New  York.  They  were  hardly  to  be  criticized 
if  under  the  circumstances  they  failed  for  at  least  many 
years  to  recognize  that  the  Tammany  organization  had 
very  little  to  do  with  Democratic  principles  and  was, 
in  fact,  really  a  commercial  undertaking  carried  on  for 
the  profit  of  the  clever  managers.  Pryor,  was,  however, 
among  the  capable  Southerners  who  like  Lee,  Mosby, 
Longstreet,  and  other  war  leaders  took  strong  ground  in 
regard  to  the  propriety  and  the  necessity  of  giving  loyal 
support  to  the  national  government  whose  authority 
they  had  now  accepted.  Pryor  himself  came  into  sharp 
criticism  with  his  old-time  associates  in  the  South  by 
reason  of  a  letter  brought  into  print  by  him  in  1867  in 
which  he  pointed  out  that  the  Confederacy  was  gone  and 
that  the  hopes  of  the  Southerners  and  the  interests  of 
their  children  and  their  grandchildren  were  now  bound 
up  with  the  success  and  the  honour  of  the  Republic.  It 
was  the  common-sense  duty  of  every  citizen  now  to  do 


122  Some  Americans 

what  was  practicable  for  the  prosperity  of  the  reunited 
country.  Sulking  was  undignified  and  unprofitable. 
The  two  volumes  of  Reminiscences  written  by  Mrs. 
Pryor  have  continued  value  for  the  vivid  pictures  or  rather 
sketches  given  of  the  experiences  during  the  war  of  the 
women  of  Virginia,  or  at  least  of  those  women  whose  homes 
were  in  the  campaign  region  about  Richmond  and  Peters- 
burg. The  women  of  the  South,  through  their  pluck, 
persistency,  patience,  and  influence,  made  a  large  contri- 
bution to  the  cause  of  the  Confederacy  and  to  the  credit 
of  the  womankind  of  the  world. 

Andrew  Carnegie.  I  have  never  had  intimacy  in 
the  circles  of  la  haute  finance,  but  the  opportunity  has 
occasionally  come  to  me  of  meeting  millionaires  in  con- 
nection with  matters  outside  of  finance.  I  have  had  asso- 
ciation with  Mr.  Carnegie  in  the  Authors  Club  and  in 
the  committees  of  the  Peace  associations.  It  also  hap- 
pened several  times  that  I  found  myself  crossing  the 
Atlantic  in  his  company. 

The  energetic  little  Scotchman  has  certainly  succeeded 
in  making  himself  during  the  last  part  of  the  nineteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  a  conspicuous 
figure  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  He  is  in  his  dispo- 
sition so  much  of  a  fighter  that  it  is  a  little  difficult  to 
think  of  him  as  an  apostle  of  peace ;  but  even  in  the  cause 
of  peace,  pugnacity,  persistency,  courage,  and  a  readiness 
to  make  good  use  of  resources  are  all-important.  The 
Peace  associations,  while  they  would  have  possessed  but 
little  vitality  if  there  had  not  been  behind  them  public 
opinion  or  public  sentiment,  would  of  course  have  had 
much  more  difficulty  in  carrying  on  their  propaganda 
work  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  liberal  financial  support  of 
the  millionaire  Scotchman. 

The  record  of  Carnegie's  career  and  of  his  services  to 
mankind  will  probably  have  been  brought  before  the 


Andrew  Carnegie  123 

world  in  more  channels  than  one  before  these  Reminis- 
cences of  mine  come  into  book  shape.  I  will  make  men- 
tion here  only  of  a  couple  of  incidents  which  throw  some 
light  on  Andrew's  way  of  looking  at  things  and  on  his 
relation  to  literature. 

On  one  of  the  Atlantic  trips  on  which  we  were  fellow- 
passengers,  we  had  on  board  an  energetic  woman  who 
was  going  as  delegate  to  an  International  Convention 
of  the  Red  Cross  Societies.  She  had  listened  with  inter- 
est to  one  of  the  sermons  on  Peace  with  which  Carnegie 
was  favouring  his  fellow-passengers  (and  he  was  very 
much  in  the  habit  of  "occupying"  the  deck  with  a  sermon 
on  one  subject  or  another)  and  she  concluded,  naturally 
enough,  that  she  had  an  opportunity  of  securing  some 
help  for  the  funds  of  her  society.  She  approached  Car- 
negie with  some  feeling  of  confidence  and  put  before  him 
with  fluency  if  not  with  eloquence  the  purposes  and  needs 
of  the  Red  Cross  work.  He  broke  in  upon  her  statements 
rather  roughly  with  the  word : 

I  do  not  believe  in  your  Red  Cross  Societies.  I  do  not 
think  that  they  are  of  any  service  to  the  cause  of  Peace. 
When  the  wicked  or  the  foolish  fellows  who  have  been  killing 
each  other  are  half  dead,  they  ought  to  be  left  to  become  dead 
or  to  stay  dead.  Your  societies  undertake  to  save  these  people, 
to  restore  them  to  strength  so  that  they  can  again  take  weap- 
ons in  their  hands  and  continue  their  ravages  on  the  surface 
of  the  earth.  Let  the  soldiers  kill  each  other  off.  I  am  not 
going  to  give  a  penny  to  save  their  lives. 

The  poor  Red  Cross  lady  stood  abashed,  but  I  am  not 
sure  how  far  Andrew's  talk  expressed  convictions  or  was 
made  simply  to  defend  himself  against  attacks  on  his 
purse  during  what  he  called  his  off  or  closed  season. 

Later  on  this  voyage  (or  possibly  on  some  other  voy- 
age) he  was  talking  in  his  usual  energetic  fashion  which 


124  Some  Americans 

made  it  impracticable  for  any  other  conversation  to  go  on 
say  within  fifty  feet,  about  the  wasted  hours  given  to 
ancient  literature. 

Why  [he  said],  people  who  are  working  in  this  twentieth 
century  and  whose  time  is  at  best  but  limited  should  give  their 
reading  and  their  study  to  books  that  have  to  do  with  their 
own  affairs.  I  do  not  myself  believe  that  there  is  anything 
to  be  gained  by  taking  up  the  old  stuff  or,  in  fact,  by  anything 
that  has  been  written  more  than  fifty  years  back.  The  people 
of  the  earlier  centuries  did  not  know  and  could  not  know  what 
is  needed  by  folks  of  today.  The  sympathies,  interests,  and  I 
may  say  the  prejudices,  of  today  are  so  different  from  those  of 
earlier  years  that  what  the  old  fellows  wrote  is  neither  of  use 
nor  of  interest  to  us. 

I  had  the  impression  that  in  these  utterances  as  in 
many  others,  Carnegie  was  not  fully  believing  what  he 
said,  but  was  talking  somewhat  for  effect,  or  as  the  boys 
say,  "through  his  hat"  (the  latter  phrase  could  not  have 
been  used  literally  because  it  was  the  old  gentleman's 
habit  to  walk  the  deck  without  any  hat  at  all);  but 
in  order  to  draw  him  out  a  little  further,  I  put  in  a 
modest  reference  to  the  Scriptures:  "Is  it  not  the 
case,  Mr.  Carnegie,  that  these  writings,  some  of  them 
the  work  of  teachers  of  thousands  of  years  back,  have 
given  help  and  inspiration  and  service^  to  all  the  genera- 
tions since?" 

Not  a  bit  [he  said],  that  is  a  mere  fetish  and  superstition. 
Each  generation  ought  to  produce  and  does  produce  its  own 
teachers.  Each  generation  receives  its  own  inspiration. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  Divine  Powers  should  select  one 
century  rather  than  another,  or  one  group  of  men  rather  than 
another,  as  channels  for  the  inspiration  of  living  men.  And 
as  for  the  Old  Testament  writers,  they  are  very  much  over- 
rated. Why,  sir,  there  is  not  a  prophet,  neither  a  minor 


Edwin  A.  Abbey  125 

prophet  nor  a  major  prophet,  whom  I  would  introduce  to 
Mrs.  Carnegie! 

A  college  professor,  travelling  on  his  sabbatical,  sug- 
gested in  his  turn  that  there  was  something  to  be  found 
in  the  way  of  intellectual  development  and  inspiration  in 
the  Greek  and  Latin  classics. 

Not  a  bit  of  it  [roared  Carnegie],  that  is  all  an  absurdity. 
People  work  over  the  Latin  and  Greek  and  because  they  have 
had  the  labour  of  finding  out  through  the  difficulties  of  the 
language  what  the  writer  was  saying,  they  convince  them- 
selves that  there  was  value  in  what  he  said.  I  have  looked 
into  the  classics.  I  gave  some  weeks  to  them  last  winter, 
not  in  the  originals  to  be  sure,  but  in  translations  which  gave 
me  a  good  enough  idea  of  their  purpose  and  character.  [I 
remembered  seeing  in  Carnegie's  library  at  one  of  the  meetings 
of  our  Peace  Committee  a  new  set  of  the  Bohn  Classical 
Library  in  the  English  versions.]  I  have  heard  so  much  talk 
about  the  beauty  of  the  classics  that  I  thought  I  ought  to 
inform  myself  in  regard  to  them.  There  is  nothing  in  them  at 
all.  It  is  clear  waste  of  time  even  to  take  them  in  English, 
and,  of  course,  a  much  larger  waste  to  give  the  additional 
labour  required  to  master  the  Latin  or  the  Greek.  If  I  could 
have  my  way,  the  college  students  would  be  obliged  to  give  to 
the  books  of  the  past  half  century  and  to  the  books  of  their 
own  language  all  the  time  that  could  be  spared  in  their  lives 
for  literature.  But  the  main  thing  after  all  for  the  youngsters 
is,  of  course,  to  learn  how  to  make  their  living  and  to  do  their 
duty  as  citizens. 

Edwin  A.  Abbey.  Sometime  in  1907  I  came  into  cor- 
respondence with  the  artist  Edwin  A.  Abbey — who,  typical 
American  as  he  was,  had  for  some  years  made  his  home  in 
England — in  regard  to  a  matter  that  might  be  classed  as 
personal.  Abbey  had  been  described  (he  felt  himself  as 
if  he  had  been  accused)  by  a  clever  and  not  very  scrupu- 


126  Some  Americans 

lous  journalist,  Elbert  Hubbard,  as  responsible  for  a 
family  of  seven  or  eight  children.  Hubbard  was  at  the 
time  writing  a  series  of  papers  purporting  to  describe 
personal  visits  to  noteworthy  artists.  He  had  given  in 
the  paper  in  question,  which,  first  published  as  a  pamphlet, 
was  later  to  constitute  a  chapter  in  a  book,  a  detailed  and 
dramatic  account  of  his  visit  to  the  country  home  in 
Gloucestershire  of  the  famous  artist.  He  gave  a  picture 
of  the  old  county  mansion  which  the  artist  had  secured, 
of  the  charming  hospitality  of  Mrs.  Abbey,  and  of  the 
grace  and  attractiveness  of  the  family  group  comprising 
as  he  remembered  seven  or  eight  children  who  were  dis- 
porting themselves  on  the  lawn. 

I  had  up  to  that  time  had  no  intimacy  with  Abbey,  but 
I  had  heard  more  or  less  about  the  man  and  his  work  and 
I  thought  I  remembered  that  there  never  had  been  any 
children.  I  sent  the  pamphlet  to  Abbey  (at  his  club 
address  in  London  so  that  it  should  not  fall  into  the  hands 
of  his  wife)  and  asked  him  to  let  me  know  whether  it  con- 
tained any  statements  which  he  preferred  not  to  have  pub- 
lished in  the  more  permanent  form  of  a  book.  Abbey 
replied  promptly  and  with  no  little  indignation  to  the 
effect  that  he  had  never  seen  the  man  Hubbard  and  that 
he  should  not  have  been  likely  to  extend  the  hospitality 
of  his  country  home  to  any  reporter  of  Hubbard's  kind. 
He  confirmed  my  impression  that  there  never  had  been 
any  children  and  he  begged  me  to  do  whatever  might  be 
practicable  to  suppress  the  pamphlet  and  to  prevent  this 
fake  interview  and  description  of  the  artist  and  his  family 
being  reprinted  in  book  form.  He  said  that  the  desire 
for  children  had  been  the  passion  of  his  wife  and  that  this 
description  of  a  family  that  never  existed  might  bring  her 
into  a  state  of  nervous  prostration. 

I  brought  pressure  to  bear  upon  Hubbard  and  secured 
the  cancellation  of  the  chapter  in  the  proposed  book.  He 


Joseph  H.  Choate  127 

admitted,  of  course,  that  he  had  never  made  the  visit  and 
had  in  fact  never  seen  Abbey.  He  had  secured  some  de- 
scription of  Abbey's  country  home  and  he  thought  that 
the  beautiful  English  lawn  would  look  "kind  of  empty" 
without  children  and  therefore  he  had  put  the  children 
into  his  picture.  "A  man  ought  not  get  annoyed,"  said 
Hubbard,  "at  a  little  thing  like  that;  particularly  when  I 
took  such  pains  to  crack  up  his  art."  Abbey  needed  at 
that  time  no  "cracking  up"  from  any  critics  and  partic- 
ularly from  irresponsible  writers  like  Hubbard.  He  was 
at  the  zenith  of  a  well-earned  fame. 

His  gratitude  for  my  little  service  in  heading  off  the 
continued  publication  of  this  troublesome  paper  caused  him 
to  give  me  a  cordial  invitation  to  the  same  country  home 
and  the  following  summer  I  had  a  charming  visit  with 
him  in  Gloucestershire.  The  home  had  all  the  attractions 
that  Hubbard  could  have  described  if  he  had  seen  them, 
less  only  the  group  of  children.  Abbey  was  at  that  time 
completing  the  beautiful  series  of  designs  for  the  state- 
house  at  Harrisburg.  These  paintings,  executed  on  an 
heroic  scale,  showed  what  the  imagination  of  the  artist 
was  capable  of.  He  had  been  able  so  to  idealize  the  great 
industries  of  Pennnsylvania,  the  production  of  iron,  petro- 
leum, etc.,  as  to  give  a  vision  of  great  forces  shaping  the 
resources  of  the  community  for  the  welfare  of  the  State 
and  of  mankind.  Abbey  died  too  young  and  before  his 
great  conceptions  had  found  place  on  the  walls  of  the 
Pennsylvania  state-house. 

Joseph  H.  Choate.  I  have  had  many  opportunities 
during  the  past  half-century  of  securing  personal  impres- 
sions of  the  brilliant  New  England  New  Yorker  whose 
characteristic  personality  has  made  itself  felt  at  the  Bar, 
in  diplomacy,  as  a  leader  in  citizens'  movements,  and  as 
expressing  a  charming  and  characteristic  type  of  Ameri- 
can manhood.  I  suppose  that  during  the  last  twenty 


128  Some  Americans 

years  of  his  active  work  at  the  Bar,  Mr.  Choate  was  re- 
cognized as  holding  the  first  place  among  barristers.  I 
have  been  told  that  he  was  not  to  be  classed  as  a  great 
jurist,  although  his  successful  management  of  the  all- 
important  Income  Tax  case,  in  which  he  won  out  in  the 
Supreme  Court  against  such  a  jurist  as  James  C.  Carter, 
gave  ground  for  such  a  claim.  But  for  the  presentation 
of  a  case  before  a  jury,  for  the  management  of  witnesses, 
in  the  shaping  of  his  argument,  and  in  a  graceful  and  in- 
cisive humour  which,  while  adding  charm  to  the  utterance, 
was  never  permitted  to  confuse  the  clear  statement  of  the 
main  issues,  Choate  stood  easily  first  among  the  forensic 
speakers  of  his  generation.  In  the  faculty  for  lighting 
up  a  clear-cut  and  weighty  argument  with  flashes  of 
humour,  Joseph  Choate  was  a  legitimate  successor  of  his 
uncle,  Rufus. 

I  recall  one  case  in  which  Choate  served  as  barrister 
and  with  which  I  happened  to  have  personal  association. 
During  the  long  fight  for  the  establishment  of  interna- 
tional copyright,  the  Evening  Post,  under  the  leadership 
of  E.  L.  Godkin  and  of  Horace  White,  had  taken  a  strong 
stand  in  behalf  of  the  abolishing  of  American  literary  piracy. 
We  had  found  the  leaders  of  the  Post,  leaders  largely 
written  by  Godkin,  valuable  ammunition  with  certain 
classes  of  legislators  and  other  citizens  whose  opinions 
it  was  necessary  to  influence.  It  may  be  admitted,  also, 
that  as  a  result  of  the  antagonism  felt  in  many  circles  for 
the  Post  and  for  its  senior  editor,  certain  people  having 
no  direct  knowledge  of  the  subject  and  no  particular 
interest  in  authors,  in  publishers,  or  in  the  literary  needs 
of  the  country,  were  ready  to  be  biassed  against  the  copy- 
right movement  simply  because  it  was  being  supported 
by  Godkin  and  the  Post.  With  a  full  measure  of  public 
spirit,  with  enormous  knowledge  of  the  matters  discussed, 
with  exceptional  force  and  power  of  presentation,  and  with 


Joseph  H.  Choate  129 

a  keen  and  sometimes  malicious  humour,  Godkin  was 
sure  of  securing  readers  for  what  he  wrote ;  but  he  probably 
made  but  few  converts  even  when,  as  was  certainly  true 
in  the  majority  of  cases,  his  conclusions  were  absolutely 
right,  that  is  to  say,  were  in  line  with  the  higher  interests 
of  the  community.  He  had  a  real  Irish  faculty  for  arous- 
ing needless  antagonism;  but  his  utterances  were  often 
too  bitter  to  be  naturally  Hibernian.  In  his  articles  on 
copyright,  he  had  given  more  space  to  animadversion  on 
the  "pirates"  than  was  allotted  to  the  approval  of  the 
measures  of  those  who  were  fighting  for  a  civilized  view 
of  literary  property. 

Among  the  publishers  who  at  that  time  thought  it  to 
their  interest  to  oppose  international  copyright,  the  Rev- 
erend Isaac  K.  Funk  was  prominent.  Dr.  Funk  was  a 
leader  among  the  Methodists  and  had  also  given  years  of 
labour  to  the  cause  of  what  he  called  Temperance,  but 
which  meant  for  his  party  total  abstinence  for  themselves 
and  Prohibition  for  their  neighbours.  In  the  later  years 
of  his  life,  he  became  prominent  also  among  the  Spiritual- 
ists. His  earlier  business  undertakings  after  he  left  the 
active  work  of  the  ministry  were  unsuccessful;  but  with 
pluck  and  persistency,  he  made  a  second  attempt,  securing 
credit  in  place  of  the  capital  that  had  been  lost,  and  he 
built  up,  under  the  firm  name  of  Funk  &  Wagnalls,  a 
publishing  concern  which  is  at  this  time  one  with  assured 
foundations  and  whose  undertakings  are  of  world-wide 
importance. 

Godkin  had  thought  it  in  order  to  use  the  publishing 
operations  of  Funk,  a  doctor  of  divinity  engaged  in  busi- 
ness, as  a  typical  example  of  bad,  that  is  to  say,  of  pirati- 
cal methods.  Funk's  patience  finally  became  exhausted. 
He  did  not  see  why  among  all  the  publishers  who  preferred 
the  "scramble"  method  of  publishing  to  an  international 
copyright  system  he,  above  all  others,  should  be  picked 


130  Some  Americans 

out  and  stigmatized  as  the  "pirate."  He  finally  brought 
suit  for  libellous  defamation  of  character,  not  against  the 
Evening  Post  as  a  corporation,  but  against  Godkin  per- 
sonally. He  complained  not  of  injury  to  his  firm  but  of 
personal  annoyance  and  loss  to  himself.  It  is  my  memory 
that  the  suit  came  to  trial  in  1892  or  1893,  a  year  or  more 
after  the  enactment  of  our  copyright  bill.  The  leading 
counsel  in  behalf  of  Funk  was  Colonel  James,  a  clever 
lawyer  who  had  had  a  creditable  record  in  the  Civil  War. 
James's  difficulty,  a  difficulty  that  was  the  more  serious  in 
contending  against  an  advocate  like  Choate,  was  the  lack 
of  any  sense  of  humour. 

Choate  had  not  interested  himself  in  the  copyright 
contest  and,  as  he  said  frankly  to  me,  had  no  first-hand 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  issues  involved.  A  little 
while  before  the  day  fixed  for  the  trial,  he  invited  me  to 
lunch  with  him,  and  as  at  the  end  of  the  hour  he  had  not 
finished  his  pumping  process,  the  lunch  was  repeated.  I 
was  interested  and  amused  at  the  power  the  man  had  of 
absorbing  information.  In  the  course  of  the  two  hours 
he  stored  away  in  his  big  head  the  outlines  of  the  history 
of  the  evolution  of  literary  property  and  of  the  series  of 
steps  taken  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  to  secure  a  world- 
wide recognition  of  the  rights  of  authors.  He  also  got 
into  his  memory  (and  a  fact  once  taken  hold  of  seemed 
never  to  be  lost)  the  record  of  the  men  who  had  been  the 
leaders  on  the  two  sides  of  the  contest ;  and  finally  he  took 
note  of  certain  details  that  I  was  able  to  secure  for  him 
of  Funk's  early  publishing  operations.  I  was  impressed 
with  the  clever  manner  in  which  he  utilized  in  court  the 
material  thus  collected.  I  would  not  say  that  any  of  the 
statements  made  in  his  two  addresses  were  not  in  sub- 
stance correct,  but  I  do  recall  that  I  found  myself  very 
'much  impressed  with  the  size  of  the  structure  that  he  had 
based  upon  a  comparatively  small  series  of  facts  and  in- 


Joseph  H.  Choate  131 

cidents,  and  with  the  glowing  eloquence  with  which  he 
was  able  to  emphasize  a  few  bald  statements  that  I  had 
placed  before  him. 

He  placed  me  on  the  stand  as  a  witness  having  expert 
knowledge  of  the  copyright  matters  in  question  and  he 
drew  out  by  clever  questioning  the  record  of  the  fight  and 
of  the  purposes  and  details  which  had  actuated  the  fight- 
ers. He  succeeded  in  getting  before  the  court  a  satis- 
factory impression  of  the  kind  of  work  that  our  copyright 
league  had  been  carrying  on  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
good  name  of  the  nation  and  for  the  development  of  the 
interests  of  literature. 

When  Colonel  James  came  to  his  cross-examination,  I 
got  the  impression  that,  experienced  lawyer  as  he  was, 
the  history  of  literary  property  was  to  him  probably  a  new 
subject  which  he  had  been  reading  up  only  recently.  In 
my  direct  examination  I  had  made  reference  to  two  famous 
cases  going  back  to  1768  and  1774  by  which  the  status  of 
the  copyright  law  of  Great  Britain  had  been  finally  fixed, 
and  I  had  referred  by  name  to  the  leaders  of  that  day  who 
were  maintaining,  and  to  those  who  were  opposed  to,  the 
interests  of  literary  producers.  James  went  at  me  in 
regard  to  Lord  Mansfield.  "Are  you  not  aware,  Mr. 
Putnam,  that  Lord  Mansfield,  in  the  case  of  Millar  vs. 
Taylor,  gave  his  opinion  in  favour  of  the  defendant?" 
"You  are  in  error,  sir,  in  that  impression.  Lord  Mans- 
field is  on  record  as  maintaining  that  Millar's  claim  to  the 
control  of  Thomson's  Seasons  should  be  maintained  under 
the  common  law."  "  Do  you  not  know,  sir,  that  when  the 
second  case  came  up — the  name  has  for  the  moment 
escaped  me —  (I  gave  him  the  title :  Beckett  vs.  Donald- 
son, and  the  jury  showed  amusement  at  seeing  a  leading 
lawyer  prompted  on  a  matter  of  law  history  by  a  lay 
witness) — "Lord  Mansfield  reversed  his  previous  opin- 
ion and  gave  his  vote  for  a  verdict  against  copyright  at 


132  Some  Americans 

common  law?"  "You  are  mistaken,  sir,"  I  rejoined. 
"Lord  Mansfield,  while  having,  of  course,  the  right  as 
one  of  the  law  Lords  to  take  part  in  this  case,  declined  to 
sit  because  he  had  as  judge  in  the  court  below  already 
passed  upon  it.  If  Lord  Mansfield's  vote  had  been  given, 
as  it  would  have  been  given,  in  behalf  of  the  plaintiff  in 
error,  the  court  would  have  stood  six  to  six  and  the 
rights  of  authors  under  the  common  law  would  not  have 
been  held  to  be  abrogated  by  the  statute  of  1710." 
"That  is  all,  Mr.  Putnam,"  said  James.  "You  can  step 
down."  I  understood  that  it  had  been  the  Colonel's 
intention  to  put  me  through  an  examination  in  regard  to 
the  piratical  practices  of  the  earlier  Harpers  and  of  cer- 
tain other  leading  publishers,  in  order  to  sustain  Funk's 
contention  that  he  was  but  one  of  a  group  and  that  he 
ought  not  to  have  been  picked  out  for  special  abuse. 
I  should  have  been  sorry  to  be  called  upon  to  tell  what 
I  knew  about  the  "appropriations"  of  the  first  group  of 
Harpers.  My  evidence  would  certainly  have  strength- 
ened the  contention  of  Funk  that  he  was  not  the  only 
"pirate,"  in  fact,  that,  speaking  comparatively,  he  was 
a  very  modest  pirate.  Fortunately,  the  annoyance  of 
James  at  being  tripped  up  in  a  detail  of  copyright  history 
decided  him  to  bring  my  testimony  to  a  close. 

Choate,  who  had,  as  he  frankly  told  me,  no  more  direct 
memory  than  his  opponent  possessed  of  the  famous  case 
of  Millar  vs.  Taylor,  was  delighted  at  my  having  been  able 
to  score  off  the  counsel  on  the  other  side,  and  gave  me 
cordial  congratulations. 

Choate's  cross-examination  of  Funk  was  a  model  in 
its  way  and  was  very  typical  of  the  Choate  method.  He 
handled  the  witness  with  exceptional  gentleness  and  even 
deference.  He  brought  out  through  a  series  of  well-di- 
rected questions  the  fact  that  Dr.  Funk  had,  after  leaving 
active  work  in  the  ministry,  been  called  upon  from  time 


Joseph  H.  Choate  133 

to  time  for  special  service  in  the  pulpit  and  at  various 
functions.  The  witness  also  admitted  under  question, 
and  with  some  natural  satisfaction  concerning  the  appre- 
ciation given  to  him  by  his  fellow-men,  that  he  had  been 
more  than  once  the  nominee  of  the  Prohibition  party  for 
Congress  and  twice  as  candidate  for  governor.  "And 
for  president?"  enquired  Choate,  pursuing  the  political 
record.  "No,"  said  Funk.  "Not  yet,"  said  Choate, 
"but  that  will  undoubtedly  come  a  little  later."  It  was 
made  evident  through  these  replies  of  the  not  unwilling 
witness  that  honours  and  compliments  of  one  kind  or 
another  had  come  to  him  continuously  and  even  increas- 
ingly during  the  two  years  in  which  had  been  brought 
into  print  in  the  Post  the  editorials  complained  of.  "  Now, ' ' 
said  Mr.  Choate,  closing  his  gracefully  worded  questions, 
"now,  sir,  will  you  please  make  clear  to  the  court,  to  his 
Honour,  and  to  the  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  just  in  what 
manner  your  character  and  your  relations  with  your 
friends  and  with  your  associates  and  with  the  public  at 
large  have  suffered  injury  from  the  so-called  brutal  attacks 
from  my  client?"  The  question  was  incisive  and  the 
witness  had  no  reply.  His  largest  political  successes  and 
the  fullest  measure  of  recognition  from  the  great  body  of 
his  fellow  Methodists  had  come  to  him  while  Godkin 
was  characterizing  him  as  a  Methodist  pirate.  It  was 
evident  that  whatever  influence  Godkin  might  have  over 
the  opinions  of  certain  portions  of  the  public,  those  groups 
with  which  Funk  had  to  do  had  been  affected  not  at 
all  by  Godkin's  attack.  I  remember  one  characteristic 
utterance  in  Choate's  summing  up : 


The  plaintiff,  gentlemen,  is  a  doctor  of  divinity  and  we  have 
it  from  his  own  evidence  that  he  is  a  much  honoured  doctor 
of  divinity.  I  am  not  myself  a  doctor  of  divinity,  and  at  the 
late  time  of  life  that  I  have  reached  and  in  connection  with 


134  Some  Americans 

what  my  friends  are  pleased  to  describe  as  my  general  frivol- 
ity of  conduct,  I  may  never  hope  to  achieve  that  distinction. 
I  cannot  tell,  therefore,  just  how  a  doctor  of  divinity  feels; 
but  to  me,  an  outsider  and  a  layman,  there  is  something  in- 
congruous in  the  idea  of  a  doctor  of  divinity  going  into  busi- 
ness for  gain  and  beginning  his  operations  by  stealing  the 
Life  of  his  Saviour. 

This  peroration  was  based  upon  a  word  that  I  had 
given  to  Choate  that  one  of  the  earlier  publications  of  Dr. 
Funk's  firm  was  an  unauthorized  reprint  of  Farrar's  Life 
of  Christ,  for  the  authorization  to  produce  which  book  the 
Buttons  had  paid  the  author  a  substantial  sum. 

Choate  had,  as  he  told  me,  not  thought  it  possible  to 
prevent  a  verdict  being  given  for  the  plaintiff.  The  abuse 
had  certainly  come  into  print  and  it  was  individual  abuse 
in  itself  not  quite  fair  nor  properly  proportioned.  He  had, 
however,  thought  that  the  damages  might  be  made  so 
nominal  as  to  give  Godkin  a  virtual  success.  He  and  his 
client,  were,  therefore,  agreeably  disappointed  when  the 
jury  brought  in  a  verdict  for  the  defendant,  leaving  the 
full  responsibility  for  costs  with  the  plaintiff .  The  ' '  steal- 
ing of  the  life  of  his  Saviour"  had  evidently  been  con- 
sidered by  the  jury  as  fairly  conclusive  "piracy." 

Of  one  other  incident  of  a  very  different  character  in 
Choate's  career  I  happened  to  have  personal  knowledge. 
During  his  very  successful  service  as  Ambassador  in 
London,  he  was  invited  to  be  the  guest  of  the  Jurists 
Club  in  Oxford,  a  club  which  contained  at  the  time  such 
well-known  scholars  in  jurisprudence  as  Sir  William  Anson, 
Professor  Goudy,  Edward  Dicey,  Professor  Phelps,  and 
others.  Some  friend  of  mine  among  the  jurists  honoured 
me  with  an  invitation  to  the  dinner  and  I  was,  I  think, 
the  only  layman  present. 

A  paper  was  read,  probably  by  Phelps,  having  to  do 
with  some  abstruse  issue  in  Roman  law.  I  have  a  vague 


Joseph  H.  Choate  135 

memory  that  Trebonius  and  Gaius  were  mentioned  as 
being  on  opposite  sides  of  the  original  contest.  The 
president,  Anson,  then  turned  to  Choate:  "Your  Excel- 
lency," he  said,  "we  shall  be  delighted  to  hear  your  views 
of  the  conclusions  presented  in  this  paper."  Choate 
answered  with  full  honesty  and  naivete1:  "Sir  William,  I 
must  admit  at  once  that  I  have  no  knowledge  of  Roman 
law.  The  points  presented  in  this  scholarly  paper,  to 
which  I  have  listened  with  great  interest,  are  not  such  as 
occur  in  the  procedure  of  the  New  York  Bar."  The 
paper  was  analyzed  by  Goudy  and  others,  and  at  the  close 
of  the  fixed  discussion,  Choate  gave,  at  the  request  of  the 
president,  an  illuminating  and  charmingly  presented  talk 
on  certain  of  the  differences  between  the  legal  procedure 
of  that  day  in  the  United  States  (and  more  particularly 
in  New  York  and  in  the  Supreme  Court  in  Washington) 
as  compared  with  procedure  in  Great  Britain. 

One  or  two  members  of  the  Club  were  old-time  acquaint- 
ances who  had  known  me  for  a  series  of  years.  I  could 
not  but  be  amused,  therefore,  that  I  should  have  gone  up 
in  their  estimation  because  his  Excellency,  my  own  Am- 
bassador, had,  afe  he  first  met  me  in  the  evening,  addressed 
me  as  "Putnam"  and  greeted  me  with  both  hands. 

Mr.  Choate  succeeded  John  Bigelow  as  president  of 
the  Century  Club,  and  in  this  year,  1915,  he  is  presiding 
over  the  meetings  of  the  Club  with  his  accustomed  grace, 
humour,  and  control  of  the  situation  that  are  in  no  way 
impaired  under  the  pressure  of  the  eighty-five  years  that 
he  has  left  behind  him. 

One  of  the  Twelfth  Night  celebrations  at  the  Club  was 
held  just  after  Mr.  Choate  had  been  appointed  Ambassador 
to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  but  before  he  had  taken  his 
departure.  His  dignity  as  Ambassador  did  not  stand  in 
the  way  of  his  acceptance  of  what  he  called  the  equally 
honourable  post  of  Lord  of  the  Kingdom  of  Misrule  who 


136  Some  Americans 

had  charge  of  the  operations  of  our  Twelfth  Night  cele- 
bration. I  remember  at  midnight  seeing  the  newly  ap- 
pointed Ambassador  to  London  and  the  Governor-elect 
of  the  State  of  New  York  (Theodore  Roosevelt)  waltzing 
slowly  around  the  room  together,  the  Governor  singing 
"Annie  Rooney"  and  the  Ambassador  whistling,  with 
gentle  harmony  and  with  proper  deference  to  the  monarch 
to  whom  he  was  accredited,  "God  Save  the  Queen." 

Our  genial  Ambassador,  on  returning  from  his  respon- 
sibilities in  England,  gave  to  his  fellow-Centurions  in  a 
charmingly  presented  address  an  illuminating  picture  or 
analysis  of  conditions  in  Great  Britain,  or  at  least  of  the 
conditions  with  which  he  had  come  into  more  immediate 
relations.  There  was,  of  course,  no  breach  of  diplomatic 
discretion,  but  the  members  of  the  Club  who  had  not 
before  known  their  England  felt  as  if  a  great  light  had 
been  thrown  upon  a  complex  and  interesting  matter. 

Theodore  Roosevelt.  It  must  have  been  in  1884  that 
I  first  came  into  personal  relations  with  Theodore  Roose- 
velt. His  father,  Theodore  the  first,  had  been  a  pupil  in 
John  MacMullen's  school  a  year  or  two  before  the  time  of 
my  own  work  in  the  school,  and  I  knew  him  pleasantly 
as  one  of  the  public-spirited  citizens  of  New  York.  Theo- 
dore the  second  had  taken  a  portion  of  his  course  (I  think 
two  years)  in  Harvard  when  he  was  ordered  by  the  family 
doctor  to  stop  college,  work  and  to  take  a  long  sojourn 
somewhere  in  the  open  air.  He  was,  I  believe,  threatened 
with  lung  trouble  and  was  in  any  case  as  a  boy  something 
of  a  weakling.  His  father  sent  him  out  to  South  Dakota 
where  he  had  a  year  or  more's  experience  as  a  ranchman, 
learning  to  ride  and  to  shoot  (and  his  riding  and  shooting 
became  afterwards  famous),  broadening  out  his  chest  and 
strengthening  his  vitality  by  life  in  the  open  air.  He 
thoroughly  enjoyed  the  experience  and  if  he  had  not  been 
tempted  in  other  directions,  he  always  affirmed  that  he 


Theodore  Roosevelt  137 

would  have  been  perfectly  satisfied  with  life  as  a  cowboy, 
a  ranchman,  and  a  hunter.  He  came  back  to  Harvard  to 
finish  his  course  and  then,  after  another  sojourn  in  the 
West,  at  which  time  his  father  permitted  him  to  invest  in 
the  purchase  of  a  cattle  ranch,  he  returned  to  New  York 
for  the  purpose  of  entering  into  business.  He  came  into 
the  office  with  the  word  that  he  had  some  literary  ambi- 
tions, and  that  he  would  like  to  try  the  experiment  of 
being  a  publisher.  I  replied  that  literary  ambitions  and 
publishing  undertakings  did  not  necessarily  belong  to- 
gether and  not  infrequently,  in  fact,  proved  to  be  incom- 
patible with  each  other.  I  found  myself,  however,  at 
once  interested  in  the  exuberant  vitality  and  wide  sug- 
gestiveness  of  the  young  man,  who  even  at  that  date  and 
with  a  comparatively  limited  experience  of  the  world, 
was  full  of  opinions  strongly  held  and  emphatically 
uttered.  I  was  glad  on  more  grounds  than  one  to  secure 
his  association  with  our  concern.  We  were  at  the  time 
paying  off  a  special  partner  who  wanted  to  take  up  ranch- 
ing in  California  and  it  was  a  convenience  to  accept  in 
his  place  a  successor  with  a  little  larger  investment.  The 
connection  was  made  in  the  form  of  a  special  or  limited 
partnership,  but  Theodore  had  a  desk  placed  in  the  office, 
and  as  his  home  was  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
the  business  (we  were  at  that  time  established  in  Twenty- 
third  Street)  he  found  it  convenient  to  be  on  hand  for  a 
large  portion  of  the  office  hours.  He  promptly  developed  a 
full  measure  of  original  theories  for  the  running  of  a  pub- 
lishing business,  theories  which  were  always  interesting 
but  which  in  most  cases  did  not  appear  to  be  practicable 
or  promising  of  good  results  under  the  existing  conditions. 
However  emphatic  Theodore  might  be  in  presenting  a 
plan  or  a  piece  of  counsel,  he  accepted  always  good- 
naturedly  enough  an  adverse  judgment,  and  a  day  or  two 
later  would  have  in  readiness  a  fresh  bunch  of  schemes 


138  Some  Americans 

and  suggestions.  I  became  very  fond  of  the  man  although 
there  were  times  when  the  prolific  suggestions,  the  ex- 
uberance of  utterance,  and  the  cockiness  of  opinion  carne 
to  be  fatiguing. 

He  had  been  with  us  about  a  year  when  an  opportunity 
occurred  for  diverting  his  energies  from  the  Twenty-third 
Street  office  to  the  field  of  politics.  The  Republican  com- 
mittee of  the  Assembly  District  in  which  were  placed  both 
Roosevelt's  house  and  my  office,  was  looking  for  a  candi- 
date for  the  Assembly.  I  knew  better  than  my  young  asso- 
ciate the  men  on  the  committee  and  I  was  very  glad  either 
to  suggest  to  them  or  to  confirm  their  earlier  suggestion  (at 
this  time  I  am  not  sure  which  way  the  matter  first  came 
up)  that  Theodore  would  be  a  good  man  for  their  purpose. 
He  was  a  Republican  of  a  well-known  and  much  honoured 
New  York  family.  He  had  sufficient  financial  backing 
for  the  requirements  and  he  had  plenty  of  energy,  ambi- 
tion, and  self-confidence.  The  district  was  safely  Repub- 
lican and  Theodore  was  elected  without  any  difficulty, 
and  then  during  the  sessions  of  the  Legislature  I  had,  for 
five  days  of  the  week,  a  comparatively  quiet  time  in 
the  office.  On  Saturdays,  Theodore  would  return  to  his 
publishing  desk  with  a  fresh  batch  of  publishing  sugges- 
tions intermingled  with  a  flood  of  reminiscences  of  things 
done  in  the  capital,  criticisms  of  his  opponents  and  his 
associates,  and  theories  as  to  the  best  method  of  running 
the  State  of  New  York. 

He  succeeded  in  doing  what  is,  I  understand,  very  rarely 
done  in  our  State  Assembly;  he  made  himself  listened  to 
during  his  first  term  of  service,  and  before  many  months 
he  had  gathered  about  him  a  little  group  or  small  party 
which  carried  sufficient  power  to  exert  a  material  influence 
on  legislation  affecting  the  city  of  New  York.  Roosevelt's 
name  came  to  be  known,  and  favourably  known,  not  only 
in  the  city  that  he  was  representing  with  full  public  spirit 


Theodore  Roosevelt  139 

and  effectiveness,  but  throughout  the  State.  He  was 
fairly  launched  on  a  political  career  that  came  to  have  in 
the  near  future  a  much  larger  importance  than  was  at 
that  time  anticipated  even  by  his  most  loyal  and  most 
confident  friends.  I  am  inclined  myself  to  the  belief, 
however,  that  to  Roosevelt  himself  the  career  was  by  no 
means  unexpected.  I  believe  (although  I  admit  I  have 
no  utterance  from  him  as  foundation  for  my  belief)  that 
from  the  very  beginning  of  his  political  work  he  kept 
before  him  the  idea  of  becoming  President,  and  he  had  the 
large  measure  of  self-confidence  which  is  one  of  the  most 
essential  factors  towards  political  success.  This  self- 
confidence,  an  admirable  quality  in  itself,  needs,  however, 
in  order  not  to  interfere  with  a  good  development  of 
character  and  with  the  foundations  of  judgment,  to  be  kept 
in  control.  An  exuberance  of  assured  opinions  is  natural 
enough  in  a  man  of  a  certain  temperament  and  at  an  age 
which  may  still  be  classed  as  sophomoric.  As  a  man 
grows  older  and  his  responsibilities  increase,  he  ought,  in 
order  to  maintain  a  wise  relation  with  his  fellow-men,  to 
keep  his  self-confidence  under  lock  and  key,  so  to  speak, 
bringing  it  to  the  open  only  at  critical  moments.  The 
difficulty  which  has  certainly  stood  in  the  way  of  the 
largest  effectiveness  of  this  "promising  and  public-spirited 
citizen,  has  been  that,  during  the  years  of  his  political 
success  and  of  his  increasing  responsibilities,  not  only  the 
self-confidence  itself  but  the  readiness  for  its  expression 
have  grown  upon  him.  As  he  has  grown  older,  he  has 
seemed  to  be  less  instead  of  more  ready  to  be  receptive 
to  the  suggestions  of  his  fellow-workers  or  to  the  securing 
of  careful  and  well-considered  information  in  advance  of 
the  forming  and  the  expression  of  a  final  opinion.  At  this 
time  of  writing  (1911)  my  friend  is  a  man  past  middle  life. 
He  has  had  a  distinguished  career  and  has  rendered  great 
service  to  his  country.  He  is  a  typical  American  and 


140  Some  Americans 

very  nearly  a  great  American.  The  possibilities  of  assured 
greatness  have  however  been  lessened  and  the  importance 
of  the  place  he  will  hold  in  his  own  country  and  in  the 
world  has  been  diminished  by  what  some  of  us  believe  to 
have  been  serious  errors  of  judgment  and  by  a  lack  of 
readiness  to  accept  suggestions  or  to  learn  by  experience. 
At  this  time,  my  friend  is,  so  to  speak,  in  retreat. 
He  is  undoubtedly,  like  Cincinnatus,  ready  to  be  called 
from  "the  plough"  of  Oyster  Bay,  or  from  literary  work, 
to  further  honours.  It  is  my  present  impression  that  the 
chances  are  against  a  renewal  on  the  part  of  the  voters 
of  the  country  of  confidence  in  this  particular  leader.  I 
shall  be  interested,  if  the  time  is  given  to  me,  in  verifying 
this  impression. 

In  the  twenty-fourth  year  of  his  life,  Theodore  became 
a  publisher,  went  to  the  Assembly,  married  a  wife, — a  very 
charming  woman, — and  wrote  a  volume  of  historical  re- 
search which  at  this  date  (twenty-seven  years  later)  is 
still  an  authority  on  the  subject.  The  wife  was  Miss 
Alice  Lee,  a  representative  of  a  well-known  Boston  family 
one  branch  of  which  had  migrated  to  New  York.  The  book 
was  the  history  of  the  Naval  War  of  1812.  It  presented 
the  first  comprehensive  record,  from  an  American  point 
of  view,  of  this  interesting  and  important  episode  in  the 
history  of  the  country.  Theodore  was  able  to  correct  a 
long  series  of  erroneous  statements  on  the  part  of  the 
British  historian  James,  and  of  other  naval  writers,  which 
had  before  been  accepted  as  final. 

After  his  term  as  an  Assemblyman  was  over,  Theodore 
did  good  work  in  the  executive  committee  of  the  Civil 
Service  Reform  Association  and  was  in  this  way  brought 
into  association  with  such  leaders  of  the  older  generation  as 
Curtis,  Schurz,  Eaton,  Horace  White,  Barlow,  and  others. 
These  older  men  came  to  have  a  cordial  regard  for  their 
energetic  young  associate  and  their  influence  proved  of 


Theodore  Roosevelt  141 

value  in  furthering  Roosevelt's  desire  for  continued  public 
service.  He  was  made  one  of  the  Civil  Service  commis- 
sioners who  were  charged  with  the  work  of  carrying  into 
effect  the  provisions  of  the  still  new  Civil  Service  system 
and  of  enforcing  its  regulations.  Roosevelt  was  the 
youngest  of  the  commissioners  but  his  energy  and  activity 
soon  gave  him  for  all  practical  purposes  the  responsibil- 
ities of  chairman.  I  remember  one  example  among  many 
of  his  methods  of  work  as  a  commissioner.  At  one  of  the 
sessions  of  the  executive  committee  of  our  Civil  Service 
Reform  Association,  Theodore  came  in  late  in  the  evening 
fresh  from  Washington.  He  shut  the  door  and  looking 
about  the  room,  said  to  the  chairman  (Curtis) :  "  I  suppose, 
Mr.  Chairman,  we  adhere  to  the  routine  of  having  no 
reporters  present."  "There  are  no  reporters,"  said  Cur- 
tis, "and  I  think  our  editorial  friends  [Godkin  and  Horace 
White]  can  be  trusted  as  to  discretion."  "Then,"  said 
Theodore,  with  solemn  emphasis,  "damn  John  Wana- 
maker!"  He  went  on  to  explain  that  he  had  come  from 
Washington  mainly  in  order  to  have  the  satisfaction  of 
uttering  that  "damn"  in  a  sympathetic  circle.  He  ex- 
plained further  that  Wanamaker,  at  that  time  Postmaster- 
General,  was  doing  all  that  he  could  (and  his  facilities 
were  many)  for  the  undermining  and  nullifying  of  the 
Civil  Service  law.  The  reports  made  direct  to  the  Post- 
master-General of  infringements  of  the  law  by  employees 
of  his  department  had  secured  no  attention.  He  had 
dismissed  the  charges  with  the  word  that  they  were 
"based  upon  second-hand  evidence."  The  copies  of  the 
charges  had  then  been  sent  by  Roosevelt  to  the  President 
(Harrison)  by  whom  they  had  been  safely  pigeonholed. 
Theodore  had  finally,  under  appointment  with  Charles 
Bonaparte  of  Baltimore  (an  active  member  of  our  associ- 
ation), gone  to  Baltimore  and  had  attended,  under  guid- 
ance from  sympathetic  Baltimore  citizens,  certain  primary 


142  Some  Americans 

meetings.  At  these  meetings,  he  had  found  post-office 
employees  collecting  assessments  and  carrying  on  the 
official  business  of  their  party  organizations.  By  the 
aid  of  his  Baltimore  friends,  he  was  able,  in  some  cases  at 
least,  to  get  the  names  of  these  delinquent  officials.  Re- 
turning to  Washington,  he  gave  sworn  testimony  as  a 
witness  before  himself  as  a  commissioner  and  then  sent 
the  certified  statement  to  the  Postmaster-General  with  the 
word  that  this  was  "first-hand  evidence."  He  secured 
neither  response  nor  attention  of  any  kind.  The  docu- 
ment was  submitted  to  the  President,  with  the  same  lack 
of  result.  Roosevelt  then  came  to  New  York  to  let  out 
his  "damn"  and  to  ask  for  counsel.  He  wanted  to  get 
this  evidence  in  some  fashion  before  the  public  and  he 
was  puzzled  how  to  bring  into  publication  a  document 
which  for  the  moment  was  in  the  shape  of  an  official  report 
to  the  President.  Schurz  advised  him  to  call  a  meeting 
of  the  Civil  Service  committee  of  the  House  and  to  ask  an 
opportunity  of  being  confronted  at  the  committee  meet- 
ing with  the  Postmaster-General.  If  Wanamaker  should 
decline  to  attend,  Roosevelt  could,  under  questions  from 
the  chairman  of  the  committee,  bring  again  into  record 
his  experience  in  Baltimore.  The  committee  could  print 
this  examination  as  an  official  report  and  our  executive 
committee  could  then  make  general  distribution  of  the 
same.  That  course  was  adopted.  Wanamaker  sent  word 
to  the  chairman  of  the  House  committee  in  reply  to  the 
summons  that  he  would  be  ready  to  attend  any  meeting  at 
which  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  not  to  be  present .  Roosevelt  then 
came,  and,  with  the  necessary  information  in  advance,  the 
chairman  was  able  by  questions  to  get  Roosevelt's  evidence 
into  an  official  document,  and  of  that  document  the  execu- 
tive committee  of  the  Civil  Service  Reform  Association 
circulated  a  good  many  thousand  copies,  much  to  the 
dissatisfaction  of  Mr.  Harrison  and  Mr.  Wanamaker. 


Theodore  Roosevelt  143 

Theodore's  next  responsibility  was  as  commissioner  of 
police  in  the  city  of  New  York.  In  many  ways  he  made 
a  good  commissioner.  The  roundsmen  spoke  of  him  as 
being  "very  much  on  the  job."  He  was  likely  to  turn 
up  at  odd  hours  of  the  night  in  any  station  house  or  in 
any  beat  in  the  city.  Inspectors,  captains,  sergeants,  and 
roundsmen  never  knew  when  they  might  not  come  into 
contact  with  their  chief.  Roosevelt  insisted  upon  the 
absolute  enforcement  of  certain  strenuous  laws  at  that 
time  on  the  statute  book  which  controlled  gambling,  pool- 
rooms, bad  houses,  and  the  sale  of  liquor.  Such  general 
and  consistent  enforcement  of  the  law  interfered  with  the 
Tammany  system  of  selling  exemptions.  It  also  aroused 
a  large  amount  of  dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  many 
citizens,  Germans  and  others,  who  were  indignant  at 
what  seemed  to  them  very  unnecessary  interference  with 
their  liberty  of  action  in  drinking  beer,  etc.  The  fault 
was,  of  course,  not  with  the  police  commissioner  but  with 
the  law.  But  voters  are  not  discriminating  and  at  the 
next  municipal  election,  all  the  anti-Tammany  candidates, 
Republican,  Citizens',  etc.,  were  defeated.  Tammany  re- 
sumed full  control  of  the  police  and  the  strenuous  statutes 
were  again  administered  in  a  manner  that  was  more  com- 
fortable for  the  body  of  citizens  and  more  profitable  for 
Tammany. 

Then  came  with  the  Spanish  War  the  opportunity 
which  I  happened  to  know  had  long  been  yearned  for, 
but  which  Theodore  feared  was  not  going  to  come  in  his 
lifetime.  He  was  a  born  fighter,  and  excepting  for  a 
certain  tendency  to  insubordination,  he  had  the  making 
of  a  first-rate  soldier.  The  outbreak  of  the  Spanish  War 
found  him  busy  as  Assistant-Secretary  in  reorganizing 
the  little  navy,  in  which  work  he  did  excellent  service. 
Office  work,  however,  did  not  afford  a  sufficient  satisfac- 
tion for  his  energies.  It  was  essential  that  he  should  get 


144  Some  Americans 

to  the  front  and,  as  we  know,  he  succeeded  in  making  in 
the  few  brief  skirmishes  of  the  campaign  a  reputation  for 
himself,  as  Colonel  of  the  Rough  Riders,  as  a  soldier  who 
feared  nothing,  not  even  his  superior  officers.  The  glory 
secured  in  Cuba  was  sufficient  to  bring  to  him  nomination 
and  election  as  Governor  and  in  this  position  also  he  ren- 
dered first-rate  service  and  his  reputation  widened  through- 
out the  country.  The  nomination  for  Vice-President  was 
forced  upon  him  very  much  against  his  will.  He  was 
ambitious  to  be  a  political  leader  and  he  had  many  of  the 
qualifications  for  leadership.  He  knew  enough,  however, 
of  political  history  to  recall  how  few  Vice-Presidents  had 
been  able  to  continue  in  leadership  or  had  ever  secured 
promotion  to  the  higher  post.  Roosevelt  considered 
himself  to  be  shelved  and  practically  out  of  the  political 
running. 

I  remember  a  visit  to  my  office,  a  few  months  before 
the  death  of  President  McKinley,  in  which  Roosevelt 
spoke  quite  gloomily  about  his  future  prospects.  "I  am 
done  for,"  he  said,  "in  politics,  and  I  am  afraid  it  will  be 
difficult  for  me  now  to  get  ahead  promptly  enough  in  the 
practice  of  the  law."  He  had  given  some  years'  work  to 
reading  for  the  Bar,  but  had  not  even  completed  the  course. 
"I  do  not  see  any  alternative,"  he  said,  "but  to  go  on  with 
my  work  for  the  Bar.  I  am,  therefore,  now  reading  hard 
at  law.  I  shall  be  obliged,  I  fear,  to  give  up  my  literary 
work."  He  had  made  a  good  success  with  certain  histori- 
cal volumes  on  The  Winning  of  the  West,  as  also  with 
his  hunting  experiences.  The  history  he  had  intended  to 
continue  to  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War.  I  reassured 
my  friend  with  the  word  that  he  had  now  become  well- 
known  and  even  emphasized  as  an  executive  of  good  effec- 
tiveness. It  was  my  belief  that  when  he  got  through  with 
his  term  of  Vice-President,  he  would  find  plenty  of  open- 
ings available  with  sufficient  salary  attached.  He  pos- 


Theodore  Roosevelt  145 

sessed  a  certain  income  from  his  inheritance,  but  not 
enough  for  the  needs  of  his  family.  He  went  away  some- 
what reassured  and  began  work  again  on  his  history.  A 
few  months  later,  through  the  assassination  of  McKinley, 
he  began  his  term  of  service  as  President  which  continued 
for  seven  years. 

I  saw  him  from  time  to  time  in  the  White  House  and 
found  my  personal  relations  with  him  as  cordial  as  ever, 
although  I  was  obliged  to  admit,  as  I  told  him  frankly, 
that  I  was  increasingly  out  of  accord  with  the  party  of 
which  he  was  leader  and  with  not  a  few  of  his  own 
actions  and  utterances.  It  was  his  habit  to  address  me 
by  my  first  name  whatever  might  be  the  company  present; 
I  was  myself,  of  course,  always  careful  to  preserve  official 
respect. excepting  when  we  were  alone. 

I  remember  on  the  occasion  of  a  lunch  at  the  White 
House  when  there  were  twenty  or  thirty  people  present, 
he  called  to  me  across  the  length  of  the  table  (I  was  sitting 
by  Mrs.  Roosevelt) :  "I  do  not  see,  Haven,  how  I  am  going 
to  finish  that  history  of  ours.  You  see  I  am  very  busy 
just  now." 

I  was  present  some  time  later  at  another  and  smaller 
lunch  party  at  which  the  principal  guest  was  an  old  Con- 
federate General  of  Tennessee.  He  was  introduced  to  the 
President  by  Mr.  Bate,  the  senior  Senator  from  the  State. 
Roosevelt  fully  realizes  the  responsibility  of  a  host,  and 
in  deference  to  these  two  guests,  he  turned  the  convers- 
ation to  the  history  of  Tennessee  and  upon  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  great  citizens  that  the  State  had  produced. 
He  said  (and  with  truth)  that  he  had  been  interested  in 
making  a  special  study  of  the  early  history  of  the  State, 
the  development  of  the  settlements  from  which  the  States 
of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  were  constituted,  and  the 
record  of  the  short-lived  State  of  Franklin,  which  was 
organized  from  territory  that  was  afterwards  divided 


146  Some  Americans 

between  these  two  States.  This  record  of  Franklin  forms 
an  interesting  chapter  in  Roosevelt's  Winning  of  the  West. 
This  work  and  the  previous  volume  on  The  Naval  War  of 
1812  give  evidence  of  real  ability  as  an  historian.  [Notwith- 
standing the  impatience  of  his  temperament,  Roosevelt 
had  shown  that  he  could  be  a  thorough  investigator  and 
the  narrative  of  the  growth  of  the  middle  West  is  presented 
with  good  historic  proportion  and  in  excellent,  and  even 
dramatic,  literary  form.  At  the  lunch  in  question,  Roose- 
velt spoke  with  special  admiration  of  Andrew  Jackson. 

There  [he  said]  was  an  executive  who  realized  not  only  the 
responsibilities  but  the  opportunities  of  the  office.  Thoroughly 
devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  people  who  had  placed  him  in 
power  and  conscious  of  his  own  rectitude  of  purpose,  he  was 
ready,  in  the  case  of  any  action  which  seemed  important  for 
the  public  welfare,  to  override  technical  hindrances.  There 
was  doubtless  to  him  a  special  pleasure  even  in  using  his  will 
power  with  a  certain  autocracy  to  cut  any  red  tape  that  stood 
in  the  way  of  executive  action  exerted  on  behalf  of  the  inter- 
ests of  the  nation.  Jackson  was  able  to  make  clear  to  the 
people  that  in  many  classes  of  issues,  they  could  trust  to  the 
executive  as  their  best  representative.  Jackson  [the  President 
went  on  to  say]  had  his  faults,  the  faults  of  his  temperament. 
With  this  consciousness  of  high  ideals  and  uprightness  of 
purpose,  he  was  disposed  to  conclude  (sometimes  hastily  and 
even  bitterly)  that  the  man  who  disagreed  with  Jackson  must 
be  either  a  knave  or  a  fool. 

It  was  easy  in  listening  to  Roosevelt's  eulogy  of  Jack- 
son to  feel  that  he  was  speaking  of  his  own  ideals  and 
in  defence  of  certain  executive  red-tape  cutting  actions, 
some  of  which  had  already  taken  shape  while  others  (like 
the  Panama  business)  were  in  the  near  future.  I  thought 
I  had  been  fairly  successful  in  maintaining  self-control, 
but  Theodore,  who  was  familiar  with  my  face,  caught  in 
my  expression  some  phase  of  repressed  amusement.  He 


Theodore  Roosevelt  147 

broke  at  once  across  the  table  with  the  word,  "Now, 
Haven,  I  hear  you  chuckling.  I  know  what  you  are 
thinking  about."  The  group  of  guests  broke  out  into 
laughter  which  showed  that  the  thought  that  had  been 
in  my  mind  had  struck  every  man  at  the  table.  I  do  not 
believe,  however,  that  Theodore  was  particularly  troubled 
at  our  amusement.  He  was  quite  prepared  to  be  laughed 
at  a  little  as  the  successor  of  the  self-willed  and  impatient 
Jackson,  if  he  could  only  have  his  own  way  as  thoroughly 
and  could  secure  as  large  a  measure  of  public  approval 
as  had  been  given  to  the  President  who  sat  down  so 
effectively  on  nullification. 

During  the  last  year  of  Roosevelt's  Presidency,  I  had 
occasion  to  make  a  personal  appeal  to  him  in  connection 
with  the  gubernatorial  campaign  in  the  State  of  New  York. 
Hughes  had  completed  a  successful  first  term  as  Governor, 
and  in  the  ordinary  routine  of  State  politics  and  of  party 
management,  he  was  entitled  to  secure,  and  was  expecting 
to  secure,  a  renomination.  He  had,  however,  given  serious 
offence  to  the  political  managers  of  the  Republican  party 
in  the  State,  and  these  managers  had  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that,  notwithstanding  certain  political  dis- 
advantage in  failing  to  approve  for  a  second  term  a 
candidate  who  had  been  their  own  selection  two  years 
earlier,  Hughes  must  be  put  to  one  side  and  replaced 
by  some  Governor  who  was  more  ready  to  listen  to  the 
recommendations  of  Woodruff  of  Brooklyn,  Barnes  of 
Albany,  and  Ward  of  Westchester;  and  above  all  things 
to  find  satisfactory  salaried  places  for  the  henchmen  of 
these  leaders.  The  political  conditions  were  complicated 
by  the  fact  that  1908  was  the  year  of  a  presidential  cam- 
paign. It  was  of  first  importance,  not  only  for  the  Repub- 
lican party  but  for  the  nation  as  a  whole,  that  Mr.  Taft, 
who  had  been  selected  (at  the  instance  of  Roosevelt  him- 
self) as  Roosevelt's  successor,  should  without  question 


148  Some  Americans 

achieve  victory  over  the  demagogue  Bryan  who  had  for 
a  third  time  forced  himself  into  the  running  as  the  Demo- 
cratic candidate.  The  State  of  New  York  was  absolutely 
essential  for  Taft's  success,  and  if  the  gubernatorial  can- 
didate were  weak  or  there  were  any  serious  division  in  the 
Republican  backing  given  to  him,  the  success  of  the  na- 
tional ticket  might  be  seriously  imperilled.  Democrat  as 
I  was,  I  was  strongly  in  favour  of  the  election  of  Taft. 
Much  as  I  disapproved  of  the  management  of  the  Repub- 
lican party,  I  had  a  still  stronger  dislike  and  distrust  for 
the  purposes  and  methods  of  Bryan  and  his  associates.  As 
long  as  the  Democratic  leaders  were  foolish  enough  to 
keep  Bryan  in  the  front,  Democrats  like  myself  who 
believed  in  the  payment  of  100  cents  on  the  dollar  for 
national  as  for  individual  obligations,  were  obliged  to 
support  the  Republican  ticket. 

It  was  my  feeling  that  Governor  Hughes,  who  had 
rendered  first-rate  service  to  the  State,  was  entitled  to 
renomination.  It  was  my  belief  that  if  this  renomination 
were  denied  to  him  by  the  political  hacks  who  were  at 
the  time  in  control  of  the  party  machinery,  the  independ- 
ent voters  would  give  their  support  in  mass  to  the  Dem- 
ocratic candidate.  There  was  always  the  risk  also 
that  disgust  with  the  management  of  State  politics  would 
influence  the  voting  for  the  national  ticket. 

I  had  no  authority  to  speak  as  a  representative  of  the 
independent  voters,  but  I  knew  a  good  deal  about  them, 
and  I  knew  that  they  held  the  balance  of  power  in  the 
State  of  New  York.  It  was  my  belief  that  an  expression 
of  opinion  from  the  President  might  result  in  deciding 
the  convention  to  nominate  Hughes  even  against  the  will 
of  the  party  leaders.  I  understood  that  P.,  the  chairman 
of  the  New  York  County  Committee,  was  working  quietly 
against  the  nomination  of  Hughes  but  had  avoided  plac- 
ing himself  on  record  until  he  could  feel  assured  that 


Theodore  Roosevelt  149 

Hughes  could  be  defeated.  I  thought  that  a  word  from 
Roosevelt  would  probably  induce  P.  to  change.  I  therefore 
wrote  to  the  President,  who  was  during  these  September 
weeks  taking  his  vacation  at  Oyster  Bay,  asking  for  an 
interview.  He  gave  me  a  prompt  response,  telling  me 
to  come  to  lunch  on  the  day  suggested.  In  the  train  to 
Oyster  Bay,  I  found  myself  sitting  behind  Mr.  Ward  of 
Westchester.  I  concluded  that  the  canny  Roosevelt  had 
guessed  at  my  errand  (I  had  said  nothing  about  it  in  my 
note)  and  that  he  had  thought  it  worth  while  to  make  an 
appointment  with  the  Westchester  leader  to  present  the 
machine's  view  on  the  issue. 

The  proceedings  took  the  shape  of  a  hearing  before  a 
judge  or  a  referee.  Roosevelt  asked  me  whether,  as  he 
thought  probable,  I  had  come  with  a  political  suggestion. 
In  the  word  that  I  gave,  I  said  that  I  was  appealing  to 
him  not  in  his  capacity  as  President  but  as  a  distinguished 
citizen  and  voter  of  the  State  whose  influence  was  all 
important  for  the  success  of  the  Republican  party.  I 
emphasized  the  importance  for  the  success  of  the  party, 
not  only  in  the  State  but  in  the  national  contest,  of  secur- 
ing a  second  term  for  a  governor  who  had  won  so  full  a 
measure  of  approval  from  the  best  citizens.  I  reminded 
the  President  that  New  York  was  a  very  independent 
State,  referring  to  the  196,000  majority  given  to  the 
Democratic  Governor  Cleveland  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  60,000  majority  by  which  a  year  or  two  later  the 
candidacy  of  the  Democratic  Judge  Maynard  had  been 
buried.  I  referred  to  the  fact  that  Hughes  was  doing 
yeoman's  work  in  the  West  for  the  national  ticket,  and 
that  Republicans  throughout  the  country  would  be  sharply 
criticized  if  the  managers  of  New  York  should  put  to  one 
side  this  all- valuable  leader.  I  asked  how  the  Republican 
convention  could  "point  with  pride"  to  their  control  of 
the  State  during  the  preceding  two  years  if  they  were  at 


150  Some  Americans 

the  same  time  turning  down  the  man  who  was  responsible 
for  the  government  during  that  time.  ' '  Now,  Mr.  Ward," 
said  the  President,  "what  have  you  to  say?"  Ward 
took  the  ground  that  it  was  of  first  importance  to  secure 
not  only  the  re-election  of  a  Republican  governor  but  the 
success  of  the  national  ticket.  Secondly,  that  Hughes 
was  not  and  could  not  be  a  popular  candidate.  He  had 
with  certain  strenuous  measures  (more  particularly  the 
race-track  bills  and  certain  other  anti-gambling  measures) 
gone  against  the  prejudices  and  preferences  of  thousands 
of  influential  citizens.  He  had  shown  himself  regardless 
of  his  obligations  to  the  party  which  had  made  him  Gover- 
nor and  needlessly  discourteous  to  the  great  leaders  of 
this  party.  The  Republican  State  leaders  were  the  proper 
people  to  decide  what  candidate  would  best  secure  the 
approval  of  the  voters  of  the  party.  "These  reformers, 
the  theoretical  politicians,"  said  Ward,  turning  to  me, 
"never  know  what  they  are  talking  about." 

"Have  you  any  further  word?"  said  Roosevelt,  turning 
to  me.  "Only  this,  Mr.  President,"  I  replied,  "the  so- 
called  practical  politicians  know  only  what  their  henchmen 
choose  to  tell  them.  The  political  history  of  this  State 
and  of  the  country  makes  clear  that  they  have  often  been 
entirely  ignorant  of  changes  in  public  opinion.  They  do 
not  know  what  the  public  is  thinking  about;  above  all, 
they  never  realize  how  impatient  good  citizens  become 
at  seeing  the  resources  and  the  control  of  a  great  State 
like  New  York  used  by  political  leaders  as  if  they  were 
counters  in  a  game  of  poker.  The  independent  citizens 
of  the  group  to  which  I  belong  are  in  direct  touch  with 
the  opinions  of  the  men  by  whom  every  election  is  decided. 
It  is  not  the  regular  Republican  or  the  regular  Democrat 
whose  vote  carries  the  State  of  New  York  or  an  election 
in  the  nation.  It  is  the  in-between  man,  the  independent 
voter  whose  vote  is  recorded  from  election  to  election  for 


Theodore  Roosevelt  151 

the  party  which  has,  in  his  judgment,  made  the  smallest 
number  of  mistakes  during  its  term  of  power  or  whose 
leaders  are,  if  not  more  trustworthy,  at  least  less  untrust- 
worthy, than  the  others.  New  York  State  has  a  larger 
number  of  independent  voters  than  any  State  in  the  Union. 
I  am  speaking  to  a  man  who  has  himself  been  an  indepen- 
dent voter,  and  I  think  I  can  trust  to  your  judgment  in 
such  a  matter." 

Then  the  President  summed  us  up.  "Mr.  Ward,"  he 
said,  "I  am  in  accord  with  you  in  the  belief  that  Mr. 
Hughes  has  shown  himself  regardless  of  party  interests 
and  of  party  obligations.  He  has  doubtless  been  need- 
lessly discourteous  to  party  leaders,  but,"  turning  to  me, 
"I  believe  with  you,  Haven,  that  Governor  Hughes  must 
be  renominated.  I  believe  that  you  are  right  in  contend- 
ing that  the  independents  are  demanding  a  second  term 
for  the  Governor  and, further,  that  they  control  the  balance 
vote  in  the  State.  I  am  in  accord  with  you  in  the  view 
that  the  Republicans  outside  of  New  York  are  expecting 
the  renomination.  It  is  fair  further  to  remember  that 
the  Governor  is  doing  yeoman's  service  in  the  West  for 
our  national  campaign." 

"Am  I  authorized  to  quote  this  utterance  of  yours, 
Mr.  President?"  "Yes,"  he  said,  "but  you  must  bear 
in  mind  that  I  am  speaking  not  as  President  but  simply 
as  a  voter  in  the  State  of  New  York." 

After  a  few  more  words,  the  conference  was  adjourned 
for  lunch,  and  I  had  the  opportunity,  in  taking  out 
Mrs.  Roosevelt,  of  sympathizing  with  her  anxieties  in 
connection  with  the  African  expedition  that  was  already  in 
train.  "I  do  not  doubt,"  she  said,  "that  Theodore  can 
manage  the  lions,  but  I  am  afraid  of  the  fevers."  As  the 
record  showed  a  year  later,  Theodore  got  the  better  of 
both  the  lions  and  the  fevers,  and  he  had  what  he  called 
"a  bully  time"  during  the  months  of  his  sojourn  in  Europe 


152  Some  Americans 

and  in  connection  with  the  prestige  of  his  lectures  in  Paris, 
Berlin,  and  Oxford. 

As  we  returned  to  the  station,  I  asked  Mr.  Ward  whether 
he  would  take  the  responsibility  of  giving  to  the  reporters, 
who  were  waiting  on  the  platform,  his  own  word  in  regard 
to  the  utterance  of  the  President.  "No,"  he  said  rather 
gloomily,  "we  had  better  turn  the  reporters  over  to  Mr. 
McBee,"  a  journalist  who  had  been  present  at  the  hearing 
but  had  taken  no  part  in  it.  He  was  the  editor  of  a  well- 
known  New  York  weekly  and  was,  I  think,  in  sympathy 
with  my  views  rather  than  with  those  of  Ward.  At  all 
events,  he  told  the  story  correctly  enough  to  the  reporters, 
and  the  papers  the  next  morning  contained  the  headlines : 
"President  Roosevelt  says  that  Governor  Hughes  must 
be  renominated." 

This  utterance  of  Roosevelt  was  doubtless  the  deciding 
factor  in  the  action  of  the  convention  which  met  a  week 
or  two  later.  At  the  convention,  P.  promptly  swung 
the  delegation  of  New  York  County  into  line  in  favour 
of  the  renomination  of  the  Governor,  and  later  claimed 
for  himself  the  credit  of  having  brought  the  renomination 
about  in  the  face  of  the  opposition  of  the  other  party 
leaders.  The  State  of  New  York  proved  not  to  be  doubt- 
ful as  far  as  the  national  issue  was  concerned;  while  re- 
electing  Hughes,  it  gave  to  Taft  a  substantial  majority 
over  Bryan,  but  it  was  doubtless  the  case  that  the  renomi- 
nation of  Hughes  secured  for  the  national  ticket  a  great 
many  thousand  voters  who  would  otherwise,  in  voting 
for  a  Democratic  governor,  have  allowed  their  names  to 
be  counted  also  for  the  Democratic  presidential  electors, 
or  who,  disgusted  with  the  machine  leaders,  would  have 
gone  "into  the  woods"  without  voting. 

With  Roosevelt's  later  successes,  culminating  in  the 
Treaty  of  Portsmouth  and  in  the  enthusiastic  reception 
given  to  him  in  England  and  on  the  Continent  after  the 


Theodore  Roosevelt  153 

close  of  his  presidential  term,  I  had  little  personal  experi- 
ence. At  this  time  of  writing  (November,  1911),  it  is 
an  open  question  whether  an  opportunity  may  be  given 
to  Roosevelt  to  resume  political  leadership  and  whether 
a  majority,  or  any  substantial  proportion,  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  will  be  interested  in  again  placing  in  his  hands 
leadership  and  executive  responsibility. 

In  rereading  in  1915  these  pages  of  memories  and  im- 
pressions of  my  friend,  I  do  not  find  myself  prepared  to 
extend  the  record  over  the  events  of  his  career  during  the 
later  four  years.  Theodore  Roosevelt  is  an  original  and 
forcible  character.  His  force  lies  not  so  much  in  any  great 
intellectual  originality  as  in  his  exceptional  will-power,  his 
abounding  vitality,  and  the  persistency  with  which  he 
holds  to  a  conviction,  whether  this  has  been  arrived  at 
after  long-time  thought  and  experience,  or  as  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  moment.  He  spoke  of  himself  once  as  a  com- 
mon man  raised  to  the  nth  power.  I  have  been  sorry  to 
find  myself  during  these  later  years  increasingly  out  of 
accord  with  not  a  few  of  Roosevelt's  policies  and  purposes. 
I  find  that  in  1913  I  wrote  that  I  could  not  accept  his 
conclusions  in  regard  to  the  tariff  reciprocity  or  arbitra- 
tion, and  that  I  thought  his  views  of  the  relations  of  the 
courts  to  the  community  were  pernicious.  This  diver- 
gence on  political  matters  and  in  regard  to  questions  of 
the  day  has  kept  us  apart  during  the  latter  years.  I 
retain,  however,  a  hopeful  confidence  that  the  country 
may  yet  secure  valuable  service  from  a  man  of  such  excep- 
tional capacity  and  power  for  influence,  who  is  assuredly 
a  patriot  and  who  must  be  described  as  a  great  citizen. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Some  Japanese  Friends 

Commodore  Matthew  Perry.  The  Opening  of  Japan 
and  its  Later  Relations  with  the  United  States.  I  remem- 
ber, early  in  1853,  being  introduced  by  my  father  to  a 
tall  -naval  officer  who  had  just  returned  from  the  East. 
"You  want  to  look  at  this  gentleman  with  attention, 
Haven.  He  tells  us  that  he  has  discovered  a  new  nation 
which  within  the  next  half-century  is  going  to  make  itself 
heard  and  felt  in  the  affairs  of  the  world."  The  naval 
officer  was  Commodore  Matthew  Calbraith  Perry  who 
had  just  returned  from  his  famous  expedition  to  Japan. 
Perry  was,  I  believe,  the  first  official  representative  of  a 
foreign  power  to  secure  an  audience  with  the  ruler  of 
Japan,  whose  title  at  that  time  was  not  Mikado  but  Ty- 
coon. The  tact  and  firmness  with  which  Perry  managed 
his  responsibilities  gave  to  our  Asiatic  neighbours  a  favour- 
able impression  of  the  United  States,  and  for  the  fifty 
years  following  we  were,  I  judge,  to  be  considered  as  the 
favoured  nation  in  the  policy  of  the  island  empire.  Perry's 
confidence  in  the  future  of  the  Japanese  people  proved, 
as  we  all  know,  to  be  well  justified  by  the  events  of  the 
succeeding  fifty  years.  I  imagine  that  no  nation  in  the 
history  of  the  world  has  ever  made  so  large  an  advance 
in  influence,  in  power,  in  wealth,  and  in  general  range 
of  mental  development  as  was  secured  by  the  people  of 

154 


Commodore  Matthew  Perry  155 

Japan  between  the  time  when,  as  a  result  of  Perry's  visit, 
the  islands  were  opened  to  the  civilized  world  and  the 
year  in  which  the  excellently  well-organized  and  ably-led 
armies  and  navies  of  the  island  kingdom  brought  such 
decisive  defeat  upon  the  forces  of  Russia. 

From  the  time  of  the  Perry  expedition,  there  had  been 
an  increasing  demand  in  Japan  for  foreign  literature  and 
particularly  for  the  literature  of  science  and  higher  educa- 
tion. The  Japanese  printers  had,  during  the  later  years 
of  the  century,  taken  full  advantage  of  this  demand  for 
foreign  books,  by  reproducing  many  of  these  and  parti- 
cularly the  illustrated  works  in  facsimile.  It  was  their 
practice  to  wait  until  the  publishers,  chiefly  Americans, 
had  incurred  the  labour  and  expense  of  securing  introduc- 
tions for  their  higher  class  books ;  the  books  would  then 
be  reproduced  by  the  photographic  gelatine  process  and 
printed  in  Japan  at  but  a  trifle  of  the  cost  of  the  American 
editions,  with  the  result  that  the  demand  came  to  be 
supplied  almost  entirely  with  the  Japanese  issues.  The 
same  course  was  taken,  although  to  a  smaller  extent,  with 
the  books  from  England,  France,  and  Germany. 

Before  the  war  with  Russia,  Japan  decided,  however, 
to  become  a  member  of  the  Convention  of  Berne.  Such  a 
decision  involved  a  direct  loss  to  Japanese  printers  and 
publishers,  and  no  offsetting  advantage,  because  there  was 
no  temptation  to  appropriate  for  readers  in  other  States 
the  literature  of  Japan.  The  acceptance  of  membership 
in  the  Convention  of  Berne  which  prevented  any  European 
books  from  being  produced  in  Japan  excepting  under 
copyright  arrangements,  was  part  of  the  general  policy 
of  the  Empire.  It  was  considered  more  important  to 
gain  the  esteem  and  goodwill  of  the  civilized  world  than 
to  leave  in  the  hands  of  a  group  of  printers  the  profits 
obtainable  from  piracy  editions.  American  books  were, 
however,  still  open  to  appropriation,  and,  as  Secretary 


156  Some  Japanese  Friends 

of  the  Copyright  League,  I  made  application  in  1901, 
through  John  Hay  at  that  time  Secretary  of  State,  for 
the  shaping  of  a  copyright  treaty  between  the  United 
States  and  Japan.  After  a  series  of  months,  I  received 
through  Mr.  Hay  the  substance  of  the  reply  that  had 
been  given  to  our  Minister  at  Tokio.  It  was  to*  the  effect 
that  when  the  United  States  might  be  prepared  to  accept 
the  comity  of  nations  and  to  take  membership  in  the 
Convention  of  Berne,  a  separate  treaty  would  not  be 
necessary.  This  was  a  pretty  slap  in  the  face  to  be  given 
to  the  great  Republic  of  the  West  by  an  Oriental  people 
who  had  themselves  been  "discovered"  by  the  "civilized 
world"  but  fifty  years  before.  The  Japanese  position 
was  logical  enough,  but  in  the  desire  of  the  Mikado's 
government  to  do  all  that  might  be  practicable  to  main- 
tain good  relations  with  the  United  States,  the  refusal 
was  not  persisted  in,  and  a  copyright  treaty  was  brought 
into  effect  a  year  or  two  later.  The  printers  and  publish- 
ers of  Japan  were  again  compelled  to  resign  a  profitable 
business  for  the  sake  of  furthering  a  consistent  national 
policy. 

Iwakura  and  Ito.  In  1874,  his  Excellency,  Prince 
Iwakura,  passed  through  New  York  on  his  way  from 
Tokio  via  San  Francisco  to  his  post  as  Ambassador  in 
London.  One  member  of  his  staff  was  a  young  nobleman, 
named  Ito,  who  twenty  years  later  was  to  secure  interna- 
tional fame  as  a  statesman  and  general  and  whose  tragic 
death  at  the  hands  of  a  Korean  assassin  occurred  as  late 
as  1910. 

Iwakura's  visit  to  New  York  was  limited  to  ten  days 
or  a  fortnight.  I  was  honoured  by  a  call  from  his  aide, 
Ito,  who  presented  a  request  (naturally  it  was  accepted 
as  a  mandate)  that  I  should  prepare  for  his  Excellency  a 
list  of  works  on  international  law.  Iwakura  desired, 
before  taking  up  his  responsibilities  in  London,  to  master 


Iwakura  and  Ito  157 

the  literature  of  the  subject.  Ito  did  not  make  it  clear 
what  previous  study,  if  any,  his  Excellency  had  been 
able  to  give  to  international  law,  but  his  present  require- 
ment covered  all  the  literature  on  the  subject  that  could 
be  secured  in  New  York  within  the  time  of  one  week.  I 
inquired  whether  there  was  any  limitation  as  to  language. 
"No,"  said  Ito,  "his  Excellency  is  at  home  in  all  lan- 
guages or  at  least  in  all  in  which  there  is  likely  to  be  any 
law  literature."  I  put  together  a  pretty  stiff  list  of  the  au- 
thoritative works  on  international  law,  including,  of  course, 
the  old  standbys  Grotius  and  Puffendorf  (in  Latin), 
a  number  of  solid  English  treatises,  and  such  French, 
German,  and  Italian  works  as  after  a  diligent  ransacking 
of  the  stock  of  the  importers  I  had  been  able  to  discover. 
I  waited  upon  his  Excellency  with  my  list.  He  read  it 
over  hastily  and  expressing  his  cordial  appreciation  of 
my  friendly  service  in  making  up  the  recommendations 
for  his  library,  asked  me  to  give  the  necessary  instructions 
for  the  delivery  before  the  day  of  the  sailing  of  his  steamer, 
of  "all  the  books  specified."  The  books  were  delivered 
in  due  course  and  with  the  business-like  precision,  which 
we  had  before  experienced  in  our  relations  with  the  Japan- 
ese officials,  the  treasurer  of  the  embassy  sent  us  from  the 
steamer  a  draft  on  London  for  the  amount  of  the  account. 
The  books  themselves,  properly  packed  for  trans-Atlantic 
shipment,  had,  of  course  not  even  been  seen  at  the  time 
of  the  payment. 

I  was  amused  to  read  not  many  months  later  an  appre- 
ciative article  in  the  London  Spectator  on  the  character 
and  attainments  of  the  new  Japanese  Ambassador.  The 
writer  laid  stress  upon  the  refined  nature  of  the  Ambassa- 
dor and  emphasized  also  his  high  breeding,  his  graceful 
tact,  and  his  wide  understanding  of  European  matters. 
Special  mention  was  made  at  the  close  of  the  article  of 
his  Excellency's  thorough  knowledge  of  international 


158  Some  Japanese  Friends 

law,  a  knowledge  which  had  impressed  all  of  his  diplomatic 
associates.  I  took  satisfaction  to  myself  with  the  feeling 
that  part  at  least  of  the  credit  for  this  portion  of  the 
Ambassador's  attainments  belonged  to  me. 

Tomati.  In  1874, tne  Japanese  Consul-General  in  New 
York  was  a  young  nobleman  named  Tomati  with  whom  I 
came  to  have  pleasant  relations.  Tomati  called  at  the 
office  one  afternoon  to  make  his  farewell,  explaining  that 
he  was  about  returning  to  Tokio.  He  cut  short  the  ex- 
pression of  my  regrets  at  losing  him,  with  the  word  that 
I  should  see  him  shortly  again  in  New  York.  "You  see," 
he  explained,  "I  am  the  only  son  of  an  old  family.  We 
are  two  sworded  people  and  it  would  be  a  great  grief  to 
my  father  if  the  family  should  not  continue.  He  has 
therefore  ordered  me  to  come  home  to  be  married." 
"Well,"  I  said,  "you  will  then  have  the  interesting  task 
of  picking  out  a  wife."  "Oh  no,"  he  replied,  "the  wife, 
that  is  to  say,  the  bride,  is  already  selected.  My  father 
has  taken  great  pains.  She  is  the  daughter  of  a  very 
good  family  indeed,  and  my  father  says  that  she  is  the 
right  wife  for  me." 

I  gave  him  my  felicitations  and  he  went  off  in  great 
spirits.  Not  many  months  thereafter,  he  was  again  in 
the  office  looking  as  jovial  and  insouciant  as  ever.  "Well," 
said  I,  "and  the  wife?"  "The  wife,  she  is  charming. 
The  father  has  done  well.  She  is  a  fine  person."  "I  am 
delighted,"  I  replied,  "and  I  hope  you  will  permit  me  to 
pay  my  respects  to  her."  He  looked  puzzled  for  a  moment 
and  then  said  naively:  "I  am  afraid  that  cannot  be,  for 
the  wife,  she  is  eight  thousand  miles  away.  I  am  here 
in  New  York  and  I  leave  her  in  Tokio."  And  then  after 
a  moment's  hesitation,  "But  the  family  will  go  on." 

Uchida.  In  1905,  the  Japanese  Consul-General  in 
New  York  was  Uchida,  a  wideawake  and  well-informed 
man  who  had  secured  American  collegiate  training,  I 


Uchida  159 

think,  at  Harvard.  He  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Cen- 
tury Club  where  he  formed  a  circle  of  appreciative  friends. 
I  recall  being  on  the  platform  with  Uchida  while  the 
Russian- Japanese  War  was  going  on,  at  the  annual  com- 
memoration of  the  College  of  Commerce.  When  Uchida's 
turn  came  to  speak,  he  had  below  him  a  group  of  keen- 
eyed  Japanese  students  who  were  taking  the  commercial 
course.  He  began  with  a  word  about  some  reference  that 
had  been  made  by  Chancellor  McCracken  to  the  assimi- 
lative qualities  of  his  people. 

Yes  [he  said]  we  have  heard  often  that  we  are  an  imitative 
race  and  in  a  sense  this  is  certainly  true.  We  are  inquiring 
into  the  methods  and  attainments  of  other  peoples.  We  are, 
in  fact,  following  the  injunction  of  your  own  Scriptures: 
"To  try  all  things  and  to  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good." 
Now  [he  said]  that  it  has  become  necessary  to  organize  our 
fighting  strength,  we  have  shaped  our  army  on  the  system  of 
Germany,  and  we  have  constructed  our  fleet  after  the  model 
set  for  us  by  England,  and  [he  continued  with  justifiable  pride] 
our  soldiers  and  our  sailors  are  giving  a  good  account  of  them- 
selves. Now  [he  went  on,  turning  to  the  professors  about 
him]  I  want  you  to  show  my  young  countrymen  [waving 
his  hand  to  the  students  below]  how  to  make  money  in  the 
American  fashion. 

In  the  Memoir  of  my  father,  I  had  had  occasion  to 
make  reference  to  Arinori  Mori,  who  was,  in  1865-66, 
the  Ambassador  from  Japan  to  Washington,  and  who 
became  a  close  friend  of  my  father's.  As  Mori  was 
more  than  once  a  guest  at  my  father's  house,  I  had  the 
opportunity  of  studying  him  at  close  hand,  so  to  speak. 
I  was  impressed  not  only  with  the  extent  of  his  knowledge, 
but  with  the  range  and  width  of  his  views  on  historical 
matters  and  on  questions  of  the  day.  Mori  was  born  to 
be  a  statesman  of  the  world,  and  he  seemed  to  me  to  be 


160  Some  Japanese  Friends 

much  freer  from  what  one  would  call  in  the  United  States 
district  prejudices  than  was  the  case  with  any  political 
leaders  of  whom  I  had  knowledge.  He  recognized  that 
the  time  had  come  to  bring  Japan  into  relations  with  the 
world  at  large,  and  he  was  very  anxious  that  the  island 
kingdom  should  take  a  dignified  position  in  the  family 
of  nations  and  that  its  international  relations  should  be 
carried  on  with  the  highest  possible  standard  of  considera- 
tion, comity,  and  fairness  to  all  concerned. 

In  1865,  he  wrote  a  pamphlet  on  Toleration,  considered 
historically  and  with  reference  to  the  requirements  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  He  was  master  of  a  graceful,  fluent, 
and  eloquent  English,  and  his  pamphlet  was  issued  at 
once  in  English  and  in  Japanese.  He  asked  my  father 
to  go  over  the  English  version  for  the  correction  of  any 
possible  solecisms,  and  my  father  put  the  task  into  my 
hands,  but  the  work  of  revision  was  really  superfluous. 
The  statement,  strong  in  itself,  was  admirably  presented. 
Mori  set  forth,  with  full  knowledge  of  the  history,  the 
attempts  that  had  been  made  in  the  past  centuries  to 
restrict  by  government  authority  the  holding  and  the 
expression  of  the  faith  of  the  individual,  and  pointed  out 
the  stupidity  and  the  perniciousness  of  such  effort.  "The 
government,"  he  said,  "needs  the  best  development  of 
all  of  its  citizens,  and  that  can  be  secured  only  if  these 
citizens  are  permitted  to  think  freely  and  to  express  their 
views  frankly."  The  pamphlet  was  somewhat  too  ad- 
vanced in  its  views  to  meet  the  approval  of  the  Tycoon's 
government,  and,  as  a  result  of  official  ciriticism,  Mori 
was  recalled  from  his  post  in  Washington  and  sent  to 
exile  on  his  country  estate.  His  services  were,  however, 
too  valuable  to  be  spared  and  within  a  short  time  he  was 
given  the  appointment  of  Ambassador  to  Pekin,  the 
highest  post  which  was  at  that  time  within  the  gift  of 
the  government. 


Uchida  161 

Later,  he  was  recalled  to  become  Secretary  of  Religion 
and  Education,  and  it  was  while  holding  this  position 
that  he  was  assassinated,  still  in  young  middle  life,  by  a 
fanatic,  as  he  was  leaving  the  temple  after  an  official  sacri- 
fice. It  was  the  dread  of  the  conservative  party  in  Japan 
that  Mori's  influence  was  likely  to  tend  to  undermine  the 
ancient  faiths  and  the  ancient  traditions. 

During  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  I  had  as  my  guest  at 
my  home  and  in  the  Century  Club,  Baron  Kaneko,  who 
was  in  this  country  for  some  months  as  a  financial  agent 
for  his  government,  and  who  also  had,  if  I  understood 
rightly,  some  responsibilities  in  connection  with  the  shap- 
ing of  American  public  opinion  in  favour  of  the  Japanese 
cause.  He  certainly  showed  no  little  cleverness  in  the 
manner  in  which  this  cause  was  presented.  He  made 
clear  to  those  of  us  who  heard  him  either  from  the  plat- 
form or  in  personal  conversation  in  the  Club,  or  elsewhere, 
that  Japan  was  fighting  for  its  existence.  That  if  Russia 
had  been  permitted  to  occupy  Korea,  in  which  great 
concessions  had  been  given  to  certain  grand  dukes, 
Japan  would  find  itself  practically  throttled.  It  needed 
outlets  not  only  for  its  trade,  but  for  its  population.  The 
islands  were  not  big  enough  and  were  not  fertile  enough 
to  support  the  annual  increase  of  its  people.  It  was  his 
belief  that  the  direction  of  the  development  of  civilized 
life  in  Korea  and  in  Manchuria  could  be  undertaken  with 
much  better  results  by  Japan  than  by  Russia  or  China. 
Japan  is  fortunate  in  having  had  available,  since  its  rela- 
tions with  the  outer  world  became  important,  capable 
representatives  possessing  the  necessary  knowledge  of 
the  languages  and  possessing,  what  foreign  representatives 
so  often  forget,  the  tact  to  fit  in  to  the  point  of  view  of  the 
other  fellow.  Kaneko  spoke  of  the  needs  and  hopes  of 
Japan  in  such  fashion  that  the  American  could  understand 
and  could  sympathize. 
ii 


162  Some  Japanese  Friends 

I  was  interested  in  hearing  of  the  preparation  that  had 
been  made  some  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war  for 
the  contest  that  they  knew  was  impending.  It  was  all 
important  that  they  should  avoid  being  rushed  at  the 
outset  by  overwhelming  forces  better  equipped  than 
their  own.  One  of  their  difficulties  was  in  the  equipment 
of  cavalry.  The  horse  is,  I  believe,  not  indigenous  in 
Japan,  and  there  had  been  but  few  horses  in  the  country. 
Some  years  prior  to  the  war,  a  committee,  of  which  Baron 
Kaneko  was  chairman,  had  been  importing  horses  from 
Texas,  Hungary,  and  elsewhere,  with  the  view  of  being 
prepared  to  meet  the  heavier  cavalry  of  the  Russians. 
Their  purchases  had  included  a  number  of  horses  of  full 
size.  When  they  came  to  put  upon  these  big  horses  their 
small-sized  cavalrymen,  it  was  found  that  the  men  had  no 
safe  seat.  The  back  of  the  horse  was  so  broad  that  it 
was  impossible  for  the  rider  to  secure  a  grip  with  his 
knees,  and  the  poor  Japanese,  however  much  practice 
they  might  have  had  in  riding  on  smaller  beasts,  were 
continually  being  unhorsed.  It  proved  necessary  to  dis- 
card the  big  horses  and  to  go  back  to  the  smaller  beasts. 
Even  in  so  doing,  they  produced  cavalry  which,  as  far  as 
the  mere  matter  of  momentum  was  concerned,  could  not 
withstand  a  charge  of  the  big  Russian.  I  told  the  Baron, 
speaking  in  joke,  that  it  would  be  evidently  necessary  for 
the  Japanese  authorities  to  begin  to  train  cavalry  to  fit 
these  bigger  horses.  He  answered  quite  simply  (my  friend 
had  not  the  faintest  sense  of  humour)  that  measures  were 
already  being  taken  to  such  effect. 

In  1912  I  had  as  my  guest  in  New  York  a  cultivated 
Japanese  author,  Dr.  Inazo  Nitobe,  for  whom  we  had  al- 
ready published  a  book,  Bushido,  or  the  Spirit  of  Japan. 
Dr.  Nitobe  had  married  an  American  wife,  a  charming 
Quakeress  of  Philadelphia,  and  the  union  seemed  to  be 
in  every  way  harmonious.  He  held  a  professor's  chair 


T.  lyenaga  163 

in  one  of  the  big  universities  (I  think  at  Kyoto),  but  had 
obtained  leave  of  absence  for  the  purpose  of  presenting 
to  the  American  people  a  series  of  lectures  on  the  actual 
conditions  in  Japan  and  the  prospects  and  ideals  of  his 
people.  Nitobe  was  a  very  successful  lecturer.  He  had 
full  knowledge  of  his  subject-matter,  and  his  statements 
were  presented  in  such  a  naive  and  dramatic  manner  that 
it  took  away  from  them  any  statistical  or  dry-as-dust 
character.  His  volume  on  Japan  of  Today,  which  my 
firm  had  the  opportunity  of  publishing,  compares  very 
favourably  with  the  numerous  accounts  of  the  country 
written  by  outsiders  whose  sojourns  have  extended  from 
a  few  weeks  to  a  few  years.  It  will  be  likely  to  remain 
the  authority  on  its  subject. 

T.  lyenaga.  In  1914, 1  had  the  opportunity  of  meeting 
Dr.  T.  lyenaga  who  was  filling  some  special  responsibilities 
in  the  United  States  on  behalf  of  his  country. 

He  had  been  charged,  or  he  had  charged  himself,  with 
the  work  of  making  clear  to  the  American  public  the  rela- 
tion of  Japan  to  the  European  War  and  the  grounds  on 
which  Japan  had  felt  called  upon  to  enter  the  contest. 

Dr.  lyenaga  impressed  me  as  one  of  the  cleverest 
speakers,  particularly  in  controversial  discussion,  whom  I 
had  ever  listened  to.  During  the  months  of  the  war,  I 
heard  him  speak  more  than  once,  and  always  with  dignity, 
and  his  addresses  were  always  characterized  by  full  infor- 
mation, dignity  of  utterance,  and  a  keen  sense  of  humour. 

I  remember  one  occasion  on  which  the  Doctor  was  called 
upon  to  meet  in  debate  Dr.  Dernburg,  at  that  time  a 
special  representative  from  Germany,  and  to  present  the 
Japanese,  as  opposed  to  the  German,  point  of  view,  of  the 
nature  of  the  war  issues.  The  German  was  a  man  of 
force  and  a  good  scholar,  but  he  had  no  sense  of  humour 
and  no  lightness  of  touch,  and  his  Japanese  antagonist,  so 
to  speak,  walked  all  around  him  in  the  debate.  One  word 


164  Some  Japanese  Friends 

of  lyenaga's,  while  not  quite  fair  as  a  matter  of  historical 
relation,  was  perhaps  legitimate  in  controversy.    He  said : 

My  people,  having  entered  this  war,  are  expecting  to  do 
their  part  and  will  be  ready  to  take  such  action  as  their  Allies 
may  call  for.  We  will,  if  so  desired,  send  troops  to  Europe, 
but  we  should  hope,  in  that  case,  to  be  assigned  to  some  region 
of  operations  where  our  force  can  be  kept  under  the  direction 
of  its  own  commanders.  • 

Our  Treasury  is  poor  and  the  expenses  of  war  constitute  for 
us  a  serious  burden,  but  if  we  send  this  expedition  to  help 
decide  the  European  contest,  we  shall  go  at  our  own  cost. 
The  troops  of  Japan  would  not  be  willing  to  do  their  work  as 
hirelings,  in  the  manner,  for  instance,  in  which  certain  troops 
from  Germany  took  part  in  the  war  in  this  country  in  1777. 

The  foreign  relations  of  the  Empire  of  the  Pacific  will 
be  wisely  directed  as  long  as  it  has  available  representa- 
tives as  capable  and  as  forcible  as  Dr.  lyenaga. 

Japan  Society.  During  the  past  few  years,  I  have 
interested  myself  in  the  work  of  the  Japan  Society  of 
America,  the  initiative  and  the  direction  of  which  are 
largely  due 'to  that  energetic  and  public-spirited  citizen 
Mr.  Lindsay  Russell.  The  Japan  Society  is  made  up  of 
citizens  who  are  interested  in  doing  what  may  be  practic- 
able to  further  harmonious  and  satisfactory  relations 
between  Japan  and  the  United  States,  and  to  frustrate 
the  wicked  attempts  that  are  made  from  time  to  time  to 
work  up  friction  or  schemes  that  would  interfere  with 
these  relations.  The  Japan  Society  includes  a  few  Japan- 
ese members,  and  naturally  takes  occasion  to  bring  to  its 
gatherings  from  time  to  time  representative  citizens  from 
the  Empire  of  the  Pacific,  and  I  have  found  myself  in 
this  way  strengthening  my  interests  in  and  my  sympa- 
thies with  a  people  which  present  a  curious  combination 
of  energy,  effective  force,  and  quiet  charm  and  courtesy. 


Japan  Society  165 

I  had  the  opportunity  of  co-operating  with  Mr.  Russell 
during  the  early  months  of  1915  in  the  production  of  an 
American  edition  of  a  message  that  had  been  addressed  to 
the  United  States  by  leading  men  of  Japan  and  that  was 
published  under  the  title  of  Japan  to  America.  Some 
months  after  the  publication  of  the  American  issue  of  the 
volume  from  Japan,  Mr.  Russell  and  myself  brought  into 
print  the  companion  book,  America  to  Japan,  which  pre- 
sented greetings  from  some  fifty-four  representative 
American  citizens  to  their  fellows  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Pacific.  These  two  volumes,  modest  in  compass  as  they 
are,  constitute,  I  think,  something  distinctive  in  the  his- 
tory of  international  relations.  I  do  not  know  another 
case  where  publishing  machinery  has  been  utilized  so 
directly  for  the  purpose  of  furthering  the  exchange  of 
sound  information  and  of  sympathetic  views. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A.  vocations 

The  Service  of  the  Public.  Notwithstanding  the  ab- 
sorptions and  cares  of  the  publishing  business,  I  have 
found  time  to  take  up  some  interests  outside  of  the  office. 
In  dividing  my  hours  and  my  energies,  I  soon  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  a  man's  business  work — what  may  be 
called  his  vocation — can  be  carried  on  more  effectively 
and  more  intelligently  if  he  does  not  permit  his  vitalities 
and  his  thought  to  be  entirely  absorbed  in  the  undertakings 
from  which  he  earns  his  livelihood.  It  has  been  my  experi- 
ence that  the  business  end  of  a  man's  mind  works  to 
better  advantage  if  during  some  hours  of  the  twenty- 
four,  or  some  days  of  the  month,  he  gives  thought  to 
matters  outside  of  his  office.  The  mind,  instead  of  be- 
coming fagged  and  stale  with  one  set  of  ideas,  returns  on 
the  Monday  morning  with  renewed  freshness  and  inter- 
est to  the  task  from  which  it  has  for  a  brief  period  been 
diverted. 

This  consideration  is,  of  course,  entirely  apart  from  the 
personal  interest  and  personal  pleasure  that  a  man  may 
secure  in  the  avocations  to  which  he  gives  a  portion  of  his 
time;  while  it  is  also  apart  from  the  recognition  of  the 
obligation  which  rests,  as  I  hold,  upon  every  patriotic 
citizen  to  render  his  share  of  service  to  the  community 

in  which  he  is  spending  his  life.     It  is  a  truism  to  say 

1 66 


The  Service  of  the  Public  167 

that  the  duty  of  the  citizen  to  the  State  is  far  from  being 
discharged  when  he  has  simply  obeyed  the  law  and  paid 
his  taxes.  In  every  civilized  community,  and  particu- 
larly, I  judge,  in  a  country  like  the  United  States  the 
responsibility  for  the  direction  of  the  affairs  of  which 
rests  with  the  citizens,  there  are  many  wrongs  and  evils 
and  troubles,  difficulties  calling  for  redress,  for  amend- 
ment, or  for  attention,  which  cannot  be  given,  or  which 
very  often  at  least  has  not  heretofore  been  effectively 
given,  by  the  officials.  The  measures  of  government 
are  not  sufficient,  and  the  capacities  of  government  officials 
are  not  adequate,  for  taking  care  effectively  of  more  than 
a  portion  of  the  requirements  of  the  community.  This 
would  be  true  even  if  the  administration  of  any  State  or 
city  were  carried  on  by  the  wisest  of  its  citizens  and  with 
a  high  and  consistent  standard  of  official  action;  but 
officials,  being  men,  are  fallible  and  political  methods 
are  faulty  .and  not  infrequently  corrupt,  and  the  author- 
ity of  government  is  often  inadequate  to  protect  the  rights 
and  the  interests  of  its  citizens,  and  particularly  of  the 
needier  citizens,  to  prevent  wrong  and  to  ensure  justice. 
The  action  of  the  officials  often  itself  calls  for  supervision 
and  investigation.  Citizens  put  officials  into  office,  but 
if  the  duties  of  these  offices  are  to  be  administered  effec- 
tively, or  even  with  fair  measure  of  decency,  the  officials 
must  be  made  to  feel  that  the  task  of  the  voters  is  not 
completed  with  the  election,  and  that  these  voters  are 
keeping  a  watchful  eye  on  their  servants,  the  officeholders. 
The  requirement  for  such  continued  watchfulness  on 
the  part  of  the  citizen  is  naturally  greater  in  matters 
connected  with  the  government  of  cities  than  in  those 
relating  to  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  the  nation; 
while  it  is  also  easier  to  bring  the  influence  of  the  citizen 
to  bear  upon  municipal  responsibilities  than  upon  the 
policies  of  the  State  or  of  the  nation. 


i68  Avocations 

The  average  citizen  does  not  always  remember  that  his 
welfare  and  happiness  are  affected  to  an  enormously 
greater  degree  by  the  wisdom,  or  lack  of  wisdom,  in  the 
administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  city  in  which  he  lives 
than  by  any  decisions  in  regard  to  the  policies  of  the  State 
or  of  the  nation.  We  are  met  at  every  turn  in  our  home 
life  and  in  the  management  of  the  affairs  by  which  we  get 
our  livelihood  by  the  conditions,  bad  or  good  (and  in 
the  past  years  in  New  York  it  must  be  said  often  bad) ,  of 
municipal  administration.  The  burdens  of  taxation, 
very  much  greater  per  capita  for  the  city  than  for  the 
nation,  constitute  only  the  first  factor  in  the  matter. 
How  much  money  shall  be  taken  and  how  it  shall  be 
taken  is,  of  course,  an  all-important  consideration;  but 
it  is  of  still  greater  importance  to  determine  how  the  ex- 
penditure shall  be  made  by  the  officials  in  whose  hands 
the  resources  are  placed. 

The  city  of  New  York  has  always  made  special  demand 
upon  its  citizens  for  personal  service.  It  holds  a  big 
position  among  the  cities  of  the  world,  and  its  history  has 
been  worked  out  under  exceptional  conditions  which  have 
brought  upon  it  special  problems  and  difficulties.  New 
York  is  the  gateway  to  the  continent  and  since,  with  the 
years  of  the  Irish  famine  of  the  late  thirties  and  early 
forties,  and  with  the  revolutionary  movements  of  1848, 
the  great  waves  of  migration  began  to  set  westward  from 
Europe,  New  York  has  had  to  deal  with  masses  of  people 
foreign  to  its  original  Dutch  and  Yankee  settlers,  such 
as  have  never  before  in  the  history  of  the  world  gone 
to  the  making  of  a  city's  population.  This  material, 
Irish,  German,  Scandinavian,  Italian,  Hungarian,  Balkan, 
Russian,  and  Hebrew,  has  in  more  ways  than  one  consti- 
tuted an  enormously  important  factor  in  the  development 
of  the  Republic.  If  it  had  not  been  for  this  great  contri- 
bution of  labour  that  could  not  earn  a  livelihood  in  Europe, 


The  Service  of  the  Public  169 

and  for  which  the  farms,  the  railroad  and  building  con- 
struction, and  the  factories  of  America  were  waiting,  the 
progress  of  the  Republic  would  have  been  seriously  re- 
tarded. It  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind,  however,  the 
offsets  to  this  all-important  service.  The  best  of  the 
material  that  came  to  America  from  Europe  was  that 
sent  over  in  the  first  series  of  immigrations,  and  partic- 
ularly that  resulting  from  the  revolutionary  upheaval  of 
1848.  The  more  active-minded  and  energetic  of  the 
Irishmen,  the  liberty-loving  and  enterprising  North 
Germans,  the  sober-minded  and  industrious  Scandina- 
vians, brought  substance  of  the  right  nature  for  the  shap- 
ing of  our  communities.  When,  however,  these  earlier 
sources  of  migration  were  more  or  less  exhausted  and  the 
increasing  streams  of  transatlantic  travellers  came  from 
homes  much  farther  away  in  methods  of  life  and  of  char- 
acter, from  such  distant  communities  as  those  of  south- 
eastern Europe,  the  difficulty  of  assimilation  became  very 
much  greater.  With  these  later  groups,  as  for  that  matter 
with  the  earlier,  the  best  of  the  material  has  always  found 
its  way  promptly  through  New  York  to  settlements  in 
the  West.  The  rubbish,  the  driftwood,  and,  worst  of 
all,  the  criminal  groups  looking  for  an  easy  living  without 
labour,  have  very  largely  remained  in  New  York  City  to 
add  in  more  ways  than  one  to  the  burdens  of  its  citizens, 
to  swell  its  list  of  paupers  and  criminals,  and  to  overtax 
the  capacity  of  its  government,  however  much  aided  by 
the  voluntary  service  of  individuals,  for  adequate  control 
either  of  pauperism  or  of  crime.  For  three  fourths  of  a 
century,  New  York  has  been  called  upon  to  receive,  to 
digest  (as  far  as  possible),  or  at  least  to  control,  the 
failures  of  Europe. 

The  problem  has,  of  course,  been  made  all  the  greater 
because  the  system  of  manhood  suffrage  which  is  accepted 
for  the  nation  and  for  the  State  can  hardly  be  excluded, 


170  Avocations 

and  as  a  fact  never  has  been  excluded,  from  the  city. 
Political  leaders  of  the  baser  sort,  the  men  who  make  a 
gamble  of  politics,  the  tricksters  and  the  political  specu- 
lators, promptly  found  their  opportunity  in  using  igno- 
rant voting  material,  through  the  backing  of  which  they 
could  be  placed  in  power  and  could  secure  the  control  of 
the  resources  of  the  city.  Thousands  of  voters  who 
cannot  read  English,  thousands  of  others  who  are  able 
to  read  but  -  who  do  not  trouble  themselves  to  under- 
stand the  issues  to  be  passed  upon,  have  been  willing  to 
leave  their  actions  as  American  citizens  to  be  controlled 
by  leaders,  chiefly  Irish,  for  building  up  the  great  organi- 
zation of  Tammany  Hall,  and  for  supporting  district 
associations  equally  bent  on  the  exploitation  of  the  com- 
munity. Thousands  of  public-spirited  New  Yorkers  have 
from  year  to  year  done  what  seemed  to  be  possible  to 
retain  some  measure  of  independence  for  the  honest 
and  intelligent  portion  of  the  community,  the  portion 
which  is  called  upon  to  contribute  in  increasing  amounts 
of  taxation  some  defence  against  an  exploitation  that  as 
carried  on  in  certain  years  could  better  be  described  as 
"piracy." 

From  time  to  time,  citizens  working  in  voluntary  com- 
mittees have  been  able  to  head  off,  or  at  least  to  check 
the  worst  of  the  evils.  Now  and  then,  as  in  1877,  when 
the  Tweed  Ring  was  brought  to  its  downfall,  these  com- 
mittees have  been  able  to  bring  legal  penalties  to  bear 
upon  the  worst  of  the  pirates,  but  during  my  experience 
as  a  citizen  of  New  York,  I  judge  that  in  sixteen  years  out 
of  twenty,  the  control  of  the  city  has  been  in  the  hands 
of  leaders  whose  chief  support  came  from  the  unintelligent 
and  the  ignorant,  and  whose  powers  were  used  not  for 
the  good  of  the  city,  but  for  their  own  aggrandizement  and 
profit.  During  the  past  twenty  years,  there  has,  how- 
ever, been  a  wholesome  development  of  civic  patriotism; 


The  Society  for  Political  Education     171 

the  number  of  men,  old  and  young,  who  have  been  willing 
to  give  of  their  money  and  of  their  time  for  the  work  of 
the  community  is  increasing,  and  with  the  larger  experience 
in  such  work,  the  capacity  of  citizens  as  political  leaders, 
and  their  ability  to  handle  the  complex  problems  presented, 
have  very  much  developed.  With  this  higher  effectiveness 
of  citizen  action,  New  York  has  finally  secured  during  the 
first  years  of  the  twentieth  century  a  better  municipal 
administration  than  had  been  known  during  the  previous 
fifty  years.  Writing  in  1914,  I  may  say  that  the  munici- 
pal authorities  are  doing  better  work  than  I  have  in  my 
experience  as  a  citizen  before  known,  and  it  seems  as  if 
New  York  could  never  again  accept  domination  from 
such  a  gang  of  unscrupulous  gamblers  as  were  brought 
to  book  with  Tweed  in  1877. 

The  Society  for  Political  Education.  Shepard  and 
Dugdale.  In  the  late  seventies,  I  came  into  association 
with  Edward  M.  Shepard,  of  the  New  York  Bar,  Richard 
R.  Bowker,  already  referred  to,  Richard  Dugdale,  and 
with  one  or  two  other  men  of  the  same  generation,  in 
the  work  of  the  Society  for  Political  Education.  Dug- 
dale was  an  Englishman  who  had  inherited  a  small  com- 
petency that  saved  him  from  giving  daily  hours  to  business 
work.  He  had  large  ideals  for  the  education  of  the 
community.  He  had  convinced  himself,  as  many  other 
public-spirited  men  have  convinced  themselves,  that  if  re- 
presentative government  is  not  to  be  a  farce,  the  fight- 
ing power  must  be  in  the  hands  of  voters  who  possess 
adequate  information  in  regard  to  the  issues  to  be  decided 
from  election  to  election,  and  who  possess  further  a 
sufficient  training  to  utilize  such  information  and  to  ar- 
rive at  an  intelligent  judgment  for  their  action  as  citizens. 

Such  an  ideal  for  the  foundations  of  a  representative 
government  is,  of  course,  a  counsel  of  perfection;  it  has 
never  been  realized  adequately  in  any  state  in  the  world's 


172  Avocations 

history.  I  suppose  that  in  Athens  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  fifth  and  in  the  early  years  of  the  fourth  century  B.C., 
and  in  such  an  Italian  city  as  Florence  before  the  power 
of  government  was  taken  possession  of  by  one  of  the  big 
families,  the  direction  of  public  affairs  was  in  the  hands  of 
a  class  of  citizens  (representing  of  course  but  a  minority 
of  the  population  as  a  whole)  whose  information  and 
whose  intelligence  would  have  met  the  standards  that 
Dugdale  had  in  his  mind  as  a  proper  condition  of  citizen- 
ship. But  even  in  Athens  and  in  Florence,  such  condi- 
tions lasted  but  for  a  brief  period,  and  under  the  pressure 
either  of  ambition  from  within  or  of  war  conditions  from 
without,  the  control  of  these  states  soon  fell  into  the 
hands  of  individuals  who  were  empowered  to  act,  or  who 
seized  the  power  to  act,  without  reference  to  any  repre- 
sentative opinion  whatsoever. 

Dugdale  had  a  great  belief  in  the  influence  of  reason- 
able argument.  He  thought  that  the  voters  of  a 
community  could  be  educated  to  a  public-spirited  under- 
standing of  its  duties  by  means  of  tracts,  monographs, 
political  sermons,  etc.  I  was  young  enough  to  be,  if 
not  confident,  at  least  hopeful,  in  regard  to  any  such 
experiments. 

Our  little  committee  worked  together  for  some  years 
with  moneys  collected  for  the  purpose  from  older  men 
who  were  sympathetic  with  our  enthusiasm,  and  we 
brought  into  print  and  into  circulation  in  a  series  of 
monographs  some  wise,  wholesome,  and  educational 
treatises  in  regard  to  the  obligations  of  citizens  and  the 
possibilities  of  action  by  citizens.  Dugdale,  who  had 
always  been  an  invalid,  died  after  we  had  worked  to- 
gether for  a  few  years,  and  having  no  family,  he  left  his 
little  property  as  a  fund  for  carrying  on  the  work  of  po- 
litical education.  The  few  hundred  dollars  income  that 
was  secured  from  this  fund  was  certainly  used  unselfishly 


The  Civil  Service  Reform  Committee   173 

and  with  conscientious  thought.  It  is  not  easy  to  point 
to  direct  results,  but  I  can  but  feel  as  if  the  reiterated 
sowing  of  seed  and  the  persistent  effort  in  behalf  of  good 
citizenship  must  have  had  influence  on  the  citizens  of  the 
community  and  that  the  use  made  by  us  of  Dugdale's 
dollars  represented  a  wise  investment. 

The  Civil  Service  Reform  Committee.  In  June,  1877, 
President  Hayes  issued  an  order  prohibiting  United 
States  officials  from  engaging  in  private  work,  and  par- 
ticularly from  collecting  from  their  subordinates  as- 
sessments or  subscriptions  for  party  purposes.  This 
instruction  was,  of  course,  in  -full  accord  with  the  pur- 
pose and  the  provisions  of  the  National  Civil  Service 
Act  (passed  in  the  winter  of  1876-77),  which  act  is 
usually  referred  to  as  the  first  civil  service  reform  law. 
Both  the  law  and  the  instructions  were,  however,  for 
the  first  year  or  two  very  generally  disregarded  by 
United  States  officials  throughout  the  country,  many  of 
whom  had  been,  and  continued  to  be,  active  in  the  leader- 
ship and  in  the  management  of  their  party  affairs.  The 
antagonism  of  these  party  men  against  what  they  called 
"snivel  service  reform"  was  the  strongest  in  Pennsylvania 
and  in  New  York.  I  was  at  the  time  a  member  of  the 
executive  committee  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
Association,  of  which  George  William  Curtis  was  the 
president.  The  committee  decided  that,  at  whatever 
cost,  some  effort  must  be  made  to  enforce  the  provision 
of  the  law  against  political  assessments  and  to  make  clear 
that  the  Civil  Service  Act  was  as  much  a  part  of  the  gov- 
erning system  of  the  country  as  any  other  act  on  the 
statute  book. 

General  Newton  M.  Curtis,  a  man  who  had  won  well 
deserved  honours  in  the  Civil  War  and  had  lost  an  eye  at 
the  capture  of  Fort  Fisher,  held  at  this  time  an  office  in 
the  New  York  Custom  House.  He  was  an  active  party 


174  Avocations 

man,  and  had  accepted  without  question  the  instructions 
of  A.  B.  Cornell,  at  that  time  Naval  Officer  and  also 
treasurer  of  the  Republican  State  Committee,  to  take 
charge  of  the  work  of  collecting  from  the  employees  of 
the  Custom  House  assessments  for  the  funds  required 
by  the  Republican  State  organization  for  the  coming 
election.  Curtis  collected  in  the  course  of  thirty  days 
a  good  many  hundred  dollars,  the  assessments  being  based 
upon  a  percentage  of  the  salaries  of  the  employees. 

One  of  the  difficulties  in  preventing  the  collection  was 
due  to  the  technical  wording  of  the  act.  Our  legal  ad- 
visers informed  us  that  in  order  to  enforce  the  penalties 
of  the  law,  we  should  have  to  prove  that  "  lawful  money  " 
had  been  paid  in  response  to  a  demand.  A  large  number 
of  the  payments  had  been  made  in  checks,  and  others  in 
national  bank  notes,  which,  while  accepted  for  commercial 
purposes,  were,  it  seems,  under  a  strict  interpretation  of 
the  law,  not  legal  tender.  We  finally  found  one  case  in 
which  a  coloured  porter,  in  response  to  a  demand  for  a 
percentage  of  his  month's  salary,  had  handed  to  General 
Curtis  a  United  States  national  note  (greenback)  for  the 
amount  of  five  dollars.  The  darky  was  able  to  say  with 
certainty,  in  having  certain  bills  shown  to  him,  that  his 
payment  had  been  made  in  a  national  note.  "You 
see,  boss,  I  don't  have  so  many  five  dollar  bills,  and  I 
study  'em  pretty  closely  when  I  get  'em,  and  I  hate  to 
part  with  'em.  I  knew  that  bill  when  I  handed  it  over." 
This  was  the  only  man  whose  testimony  could  be  depended 
upon  in  the  suit  that  we  brought  against  Curtis,  but  his 
evidence  proved  sufficient  to  convict  the  General  of  a 
breach  of  the  law.  When  our  darky  had  been  put  upon 
the  stand  and  had  sworn  to  his  five  dollar  bill,  there  was 
practically  no  defence.  Curtis  was  fined  one  thousand 
dollars,  which  fine  was,  properly  enough,  paid  by  the 
Republican  State  Committee.  I  met  the  old  General 


The  Civil  Service  Reform  Committee   175 

frequently  afterwards  at  the  Loyal  Legion  dinners  and 
in  my  publishing  office,  for  we  printed  for  him  later  a 
dramatically  written  narrative  of  his  war  experiences.  He 
used  to  insist,  with  good-natured  emphasis,  that  he  had 
done  more  than  any  one  man  in  the  country  to  advance 
the  cause  of  Civil  Service  Reform,  and  he  was  right, 
for  the  precedent  established  through  the  conviction  of 
Curtis  enabled  our  association  to  threaten  similar  action 
in  other  Custom  Houses  and  United  States  Revenue 
Offices  throughout  the  country.  As  a  result,  the  assess- 
ment of  the  United  States  employees  was  brought  practi- 
cally to  an  end.  The  party  leaders  came  to  understand 
that  the  civil  service  reformers  meant  business  and  that 
the  reform  had  come  to  stay. 

In  addition  to  my  personal  interest  in  the  purpose  of 
the  association  I  appreciated  the  opportunity  that  work  in 
the  executive  committee  gave  to  me  for  coming  into  personal 
relations  with  distinguished  citizens.  Reference  has  been 
made  in  earlier  pages  to  the  two  earlier  leaders  of  the  as- 
sociation, Curtis  and  Schurz.  I  may  name  here  Edwin  L. 
Godkin,  who  was  at  the  time  of  my  activities  with  the 
executive  committee  chief  owner  and  editor  of  the  New 
York  Nation,  and  who  shortly  after  became  managing  editor 
of  the  Evening  Post.  Godkin's  character  and  his  service 
to  the  country  have  been  very  fully  analysed  in  the  bio- 
graphy by  Ogden  and  in  a  number  of  individual  papers. 
His  relations  with  the  Nation  and  the  contribution  made 
by  the  paper  during  the  past  fifty  years  to  the  formation 
of  public  opinion  are  admirably  set  forth  in  the  group  of 
articles  contributed  to  the  centennial  number  by  friends 
and  co-workers,  such  as  James  Bryce,  Horace  White, 
Arthur  Sedgwick,  and  others.  I  had  opportunities  of 
meeting  Mr.  Godkin  not  only  in  the  committee,  but  in 
the  Century  Club  and  elsewhere,  and  came  to  hold  him  in 
affectionate  regard.  I  was  disappointed — and  I  imagine 


176  Avocations 

that  my  disappointment  was  shared  by  my  friends — 
that  a  man  who  possessed  such  exceptional  intellectual 
power,  so  keen  a  sense  of  humour,  so  large  a  field  of  infor- 
mation, and  such  absolute  integrity  of  purpose,  did  not 
succeed  during  the  fifty  years  of  his  active  life  in  exerting 
a  larger  influence  on  the  direction  of  affairs  in  the  country. 
There  was  something  perverse  in  Godkin's  temperament 
that  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  bring  his  conclusions  to 
bear  in  such 'manner  as  to  gain  adherents.  It  was  said, 
and  there  must  have  been  truth  in  the  saying,  that  there 
was  no  better  way  of  making  a  cause  unpopular  than  to 
put  Godkin  in  as  an  advocate,  and  yet  his  advocacy  was 
most  brilliant  and  in  form  at  least  conclusive.  The  fairy 
godmother  who  contributed  so  much  at  his  birth  had  left 
out  the  gift  of  persuasiveness.  Godkin  was  not  only  a 
great  citizen,  but  a  good  man,  and  he  ought  to  have  had 
the  large  satisfaction  that  belongs  to  a  man  of  high  pur- 
poses in  the  feeling  that  he  has  done  his  full  share  in 
bringing  those  purposes  into  effect.  Horace  White,  a  close 
friend  of  Godkin,  differed  from  him  in  many  ways.  White 
was  (and  writing  in  1915, 1  am  glad  to  be  able  to  say  still 
is)  a  man  of  even  temperament.  While  clear  cut  in  his 
convictions,  he  is  not  easily  stirred  to  anger  and  does  not 
possess  the  troublesome  faculty  of  inviting  anger  in  others. 
He  has  through  his  long  life  been  a  student  not  only  of 
American  conditions,  but  of  classical  literature.  He  is 
an  authority  alike  on  the  political  problems  with  which 
Lincoln's  generation  was  concerned  and  on  the  Latin 
authors  of  the  time  of  Augustus.  While  claiming  no  gift 
of  eloquence,  he  has  always  possessed  a  good  English 
style  and  has  been  able  to  bring  his  opinions  to  bear  in 
the  columns  of  the  Post  and  elsewhere  with  a  full  measure 
of  effectiveness.  He  has  a  warm  circle  of  friends,  all  of 
whom  are  pressing  him  to  do  his  duty  to  his  own  genera- 
tion and  that  which  is  following  by  recording  memories 


The  Election  of  Hayes  177 

of  the  strenuous  three-quarters  of  a  century  in  which  his 
life  has  been  passed. 

The  Election  of  Hayes  and  the  "Young  Scratchers." 
1876-1879.  I  was,  of  course,  keenly  interested  in  the 
political  issues  that  were  fought  out  in  the  presidential 
campaign  of  1876,  the  campaign  that  resulted,  after  delays 
that  seemed  for  the  time  full  of  peril  for  the  Republic,  in 
the  Presidency  of  Rutherford  B.  Hayes.  I  found  myself, 
partly  in  connection  with  my  growing  antagonism  to  the 
protection  policy  of  the  Republican  party,  sympathetic 
with  the  contentions  submitted  on  behalf  of  the  candidacy 
of  Mr.  Tilden.  I  was,  however,  still  too  close  to  the 
memories  of  the  war  and  of  the  anti-slavery  fight  that 
had  preceded  the  war,  to  think  it  possible  to  cast  a  vote 
for  the  candidate  of  the  Democratic  party.  Mr.  Tilden 
was  in  his  way  doubtless  as  good  a  supporter  of  the  Union 
as  was  General  Hayes,  but  the  mere  fact  that  all  of  the 
communities  which  had  belonged  to  the  Confederacy 
were  strongly  in  favour  of  Tilden,  and  the  further  fact  that 
the  Tammany  organization  of  New  York  City,  under  the 
lead  of  the  gang  whose  infamy  was  a  year  later  to  be 
brought  to  light  under  the  investigations  of  Tilden  him- 
self, was  backing  the  same  Democratic  candidate,  con- 
stituted for  me  an  insuperable  objection  to  voting  with 
the  Democrats.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  long  contest 
in  Congress  over  the  counting  of  the  electoral  vote  brought 
to  light  the  methods  by  which  the  Republican  leaders 
had  managed  their  campaign,  I  found  myself  increasingly 
critical  of  the  purposes  and  actions  of  the  Republican 
party.  My  criticism  did  not  extend,  however,  to  the 
Republican  candidate.  The  war  record  of  General  Hayes 
had  been  excellent,  and  his  service  as  Governor  of  Ohio 
had  added  to  his  reputation.  He  was  in  no  way  a  great 
man,  but  could  fairly  be  described  as  a  good  citizen.  He 
had  simplicity  of  character  and  the  power  of  concentrat- 


178  Avocations 

ing  his  not  very  important  ability  in  such  fashion  as  to 
bring  about,  one  by  one,  certain  real  accomplishments 
that  were  of  decided  value  to  the  country. 

Among  the  old-time  anti-slavery  Republicans  with 
whom  I  had  come  into  association  in  the  civil  service 
reform  work,  was  General  Francis  C.  Barlow,  known  to 
his  friends  as  Frank  Barlow.  Barlow  had  made  a  brilliant 
record  during  the  war,  retiring  with  the  rank  of  Major- 
General.  He  had  gone  out  as  a  Lieutenant-Colonel  with 
a  Massachusetts  regiment,  and  had  within  a  year  come 
to  the  command  of  a  brigade.  He  was  seriously  wounded 
more  than  once,  and  had  in  fact  been  left  for  dead  on  the 
field  of  Gettysburg  where  the  Eleventh  Corps,  to  which 
his  own  brigade  was  attached,  was  nearly  crushed  on 
the  afternoon  of  the  first  day  by  the  advance  under 
Ewell  of  the  left  wing  of  Lee's  army.  Barlow  was 
picked  up  by  General  Gordon  who  led  the  advance 
of  Ewell's  troops  and  put  to  one  side  under  a  tree  with 
the  belief  that  he  had  but  an  hour  or  two  to  live. 
Gordon  recorded  in  his  diary  that  the  Yankee  General 
had,  while  being  lifted,  murmured  something  like,  "  Damn 
you  all!  I  am  not  dying!  I  shall  live  to  see  the  end 
of  your  blasted  Confederacy."  Ten  years  or  more 
later,  Gordon  met  Barlow  at  a  dinner  in  New  York, 
and  was  reminded  that  the  prophecy,  not  very  respect- 
fully expressed,  had  come  true.  Barlow  had  married  for 
his  second  wife  a  daughter  of  George  Francis  Shaw,  thus 
becoming  the  brother-in-law  of  Curtis,  of  whom  he  was 
very  fond.  He  had  retained  his  association  with  the 
Republican  party  and  was  one  of  the  delegates  sent  by  the 
campaign  managers  to  Florida  after  the  election  of  Novem- 
ber, 1876,  to  see  what  could  be  done  to  hold  the  Florida 
electors  in  line  for  Hayes.  On  investigating  into  matters 
in  Florida,  Barlow  became  convinced  that  the  Tilden 
electors  had  been  fairly  chosen.  It  may  be  borne  in 


J 

The  Election  of  Hayes  179 

mind  that  outside  of  four  contested  States,  Louisiana, 
Florida,  South  Carolina,  and  Oregon,  Tilden  had  secured 
a  full  majority  of  the  electors.  The  Democratic  candidate 
needed  but  a  single  electoral  vote  from  any  one  of  the 
four  States  in  which  upon  one  ground  or  another  the  re- 
turns were  in  dispute,  in  order  to  secure  a  final  majority 
in  the  College.  To  the  disgust  of  John  Sherman  and  the 
other  Republican  managers,  Barlow  brought  into  print 
on  his  return  from  Florida  a  minority  report  in  which  he 
insisted  that  the  State  ought  to  be  counted  for  Tilden. 
This  act  of  rebellion  naturally  finished  Barlow's  associa- 
tion with  the  Republican  party.  His  protest  was  over- 
ridden, as  was  a  similar  protest  from  one  of  the  visiting 
statesmen  in  Louisiana.  History  records  that  by  vote 
of  eight  to  seven  in  the  special  Commission  appointed  for 
the  purpose,  it  was  finally  decided,  first,  that  the  returns 
on  their  face  gave  to  Hayes  the  electoral  vote  of  the  four 
States  in  question,  and,  second,  that  the  Commission  had 
"no  authority  to  go  behind  the  returns."  If  it  had  not 
been  for  this  act  of  independence,  it  was  possible  that 
Barlow,  who  was  a  capable  lawyer,  and  notwithstanding 
some  pepperiness  of  temper,  a  clever  political  leader, 
might  have  secured  high  influence  in  the  councils  of  the 
Republican  party. 

Carl  Schurz  had  voted  for  Hayes  and  had  accepted 
office  in  Hayes's  Cabinet  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  I 
shared  the  impression  with  other  of  Schurz's  nearer 
friends  that  in  later  years,  when  he  was  making  a  careful 
study  of  the  record  of  this  contested  election  with  the 
view  to  writing  a  history  of  the  period,  he  convinced 
himself  that  the  Presidency  ought  to  have  gone  to  Tilden. 
Of  course  he  never  made  utterance  to  such  effect.  He 
had  a  strong  personal  regard  for  Hayes,  and  in  common 
with  citizens  generally,  Democrats  as  well  as  Republicans, 
he  was  convinced  that  Hayes  had  had  no  knowledge  of 


i8o  Avocations 

the  methods  pursued  by  the  Republican  leaders  to  force 
a  decision  in  their  favour,  but  we  felt  that  it  had  been  to 
Schurz,  with  his  high  standard  of  political  action,  a  ground 
for  personal  mortification  that  the  only  administration 
with  which  he  had  official  connection  must  go  down  to 
history  with  a  cloud  on  its  title  to  office.  The  country- 
may  be  congratulated  that  this  fuller  record  of  the  con- 
ditions of  the.  election  did  not  come  to  Schurz  until  long 
after  his  own  term  of  office.  His  service  as  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  was  distinctive  and  valuable.  He  had  an 
enormous  task  on  his  hands  in  clearing  up  and  bringing 
to  an  end  the  corrupt  practices  that  had  developed  so 
seriously  under  the  administration  of  Grant. 

I  had,  as  before  stated,  been  keenly  interested  in  politi- 
cal questions  from  the  time  of  my  first  vote  in  1865,  but 
my  first  individual  action,  that  is  to  say,  my  first  attempt 
to  exert  influence  in  politics  was  made  in  1879.  In  1878 
had  been  enacted  the  statute  for  the  reform  of  the  civil 
service,  the  main  purpose  of  which  was  to  protect  the 
national  officials  against  the  pressure  of  political  managers, 
and  to  take  the  business  of  the  country  out  of  politics. 
A  large  measure  of  credit  must  be  given  to  President 
Hayes  for  his  courage  in  using  the  influence  of  the  admin- 
istiation,  in  the  face  of  the  strong  opposition  of  his  politi- 
cal advisers,  to  secure  the  passage  of  the  bill,  and,  what 
was  still  more  difficult,  to  bring  its  provisions  into  force. 
The  most  important  of  the  co-operation  that  was  given 
to  the  President  from  his  Cabinet  came,  as  stated,  from 
Schurz.  Evarts,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  John  Sher- 
man, Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  were  very  little  interested 
in  the  matter.  The  Republican  leaders  in  the  House  and 
in  the  Senate  spoke  of  the  reform  as  academic  rubbish, 
outside  of  the  sphere  of  "practical  politics."  This  was 
the  view  taken  very  generally  by  the  political  leaders 
throughout  the  country.  One  of  the  more  important 


The  Election  of  Hayes  181 

of  the  Republican  leaders  in  New  York  was  Alonzo  B. 
Cornell,  who  held  the  position  of  Naval  Officer  in  the 
Custom  House.  Cornell  was  at  the  time  also  treasurer 
of  the  State  Republican  Committee,  and  in  his  work  of 
collecting  funds  for  conducting  the  work  of  the  party  and 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  machine,  he  continued,  in 
contravention  of  the  provisions  of  the  civil  service  statute, 
to  make  assessments  in  the  Custom  House  and  through- 
out the  State  upon  United  States  officeholders.  The 
appointments  that  he  had  the  power  of  making  directly 
and  those  that  he  recommended  to  the  collector  and  to 
the  postmaster  were  also  dictated  solely  by  the  needs 
of  the  machine.  The  Civil  Service  Reform  Executive 
Committee  took  occasion  from  week  to  week  to  place 
before  the  President  the  evidence  that  Cornell  was  using 
the  Custom  House  as  the  Republican  headquarters,  and 
that  the  officeholders  were  under  continued  pressure  for 
assessments  for  political  service.  At  the  instance  of  our 
committee,  of  which  Curtis  was  at  the  time  chairman, 
Hayes  notified  Cornell  that  he  must  resign  either  his 
connection  with  the  State  Committee,  or  his  post  in  the 
Custom  House.  He  refused  to  do  either,  and  he  was 
then,  properly  enough,  dismissed  from  his  post  as  Naval 
Officer.  The  Republican  State  convention,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  showing  its  contempt  for  the  reformers  generally 
and  for  the  President's  policy  in  particular,  promptly 
nominated  Cornell  as  Governor  of  the  State.  The  Dem- 
ocrats put  in  nomination  Lucius  Robinson,  who  was  then 
serving  as  Governor,  and  who  had  made  an  excellent 
record  in  Albany.  The  satisfactoriness  of  Robinson's 
service  was  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  he  had  refused  to 
accept  the  orders  of  Boss  Kelly  of  Tammany  Hall.  Kelly 
had  endeavoured,  without  success,  to  prevent  the  renomi- 
nation  of  Robinson  by  the  Democratic  convention,  but, 
while  the  State  was  close,  Robinson  had  a  very  good  chance 


1 82  Avocations 

for  re-election.  The  group  to  which  I  belonged,  while 
very  indignant  with  Cornell  and  with  the  State  Republican 
machine,  were  still  too  good  Republicans  to  think  of  the 
possibility  of  voting  for  a  Democrat,  or  of  advising  their 
fellow-voters  to  break  away  from  the  party  that  had 
saved  the  country.  We  desired,  however,  to  make  some 
public  protest  against  the  impudent  action  of  the  State 
machine  in  nominating  for  Governor  a  man  who  had  been 
shown  up  as  a  law-breaker,  and  who  had  forced  a  conflict 
with  the  President,  the  proper  national  leader  of  the  party. 
Two  friends  of  my  own  generation,  Richard  Bowker, 
before  referred  to,  and  Frederick  W.  Whitridge,  who  be- 
came known  later  as  a  successful  corporation  lawyer  and 
railway  president,  met  in  my  office  to  talk  over  some  plan 
for  formulating  a  protest  on  the  part  of  the  Civil  Service 
Republicans.  We  finally  decided  to  try  the  experiment 
of  printing  a  scratched  ballot.  At  that  time  the  ballot 
was  not  an  official  production.  Each  party  commit- 
tee printed  and  distributed  its  own  ballot.  Our  ballot 
as  finally  shaped  contained  the  names  of  the  Republican 
State  candidates,  seven  in  all,  but  a  broad  black  line  was 
printed  across  the  name  of  Alonzo  Cornell  at  the  head  of 
the  ticket,  and  that  of  a  man  named  Soule,  who  had  been 
nominated  as  State  engineer  and  whose  name  found  place 
at  the  bottom  of  the  ticket.  Soule  had  been  in  office 
before  and  had  made  an  unsatisfactory  record.  We  pro- 
posed to  bring  this  ticket  into  print  in  such  of  the  papers 
as  might  be  prepared  to  sympathize  with  our  protest,  and 
to  connect  with  it  an  appeal  to  independent  Republicans 
to  show  their  approval  of  the  President  and  their  support 
of  the  Civil  Service  Act  by  voting  the  scratched  ballot  and 
thus  bringing  into  condemnation,  from  their  own  party, 
these  two  unworthy  candidates.  The  scratched  ballot 
secured,  of  course,  only  half  a  vote  against  the  candidates, 
but  it  had  the  advantage  of  making  clear  that  the  disap- 


The  Election  of  Hayes  183 

proval  came  from  Republican  voters.  We  appealed  to 
Republicans  who  found  themselves  in  sympathy  with  our 
contention  to  send  in  their  names  for  the  roster  of  the 
proposed  organization,  and  we  each  put  into  the  treasury 
five  dollars  to  cover  the  preliminary  expenses.  The 
movement  might,  of  course,  be  compared  to  that  of  the 
three  tailors  of  Tooley  Street  whose  political  rebellion  is 
recorded  in  the  English  history  of  an  earlier  century,  but 
we  were  able  to  show  some  results  for  our  action. 

I  took  our  scratched  ballot  and  our  eloquently  worded 
protest  to  Albert  G.  Browne,  who  was  at  the  time  editor 
of  the  Herald.  Browne  was  a  scholarly  and  capable 
Massachusetts  man,  who  during  the  war  had  done  good 
service  for  Massachusetts  and  for  the  country  in  the  post 
of  secretary  to  Governor  Andrew.  Andrew  had  trusted 
him  implicitly  and  during  the  four  years  in  which  Mas- 
sachusetts led  the  Northern  States  in  the  excellence  of 
its  war  organization  and  the  promptness  with  which  its 
men  and  supplies  were  sent  to  the  front,  the  State  owed 
its  well-earned  prestige  not  only  to  its  great  war  Governor 
but  to  his  alter  ego,  the  secretary.  Browne  was  a  cordial 
supporter  of  the  Civil  Service  movement,  and  he  was  also, 
in  form  at  least,  still  a  Republican;  I  thought  he  would 
be  prepared  to  co-operate  in  our  protest.  Browne  read 
through  the  protest  and  the  form  of  ballot,  and  gave  at 
once  his  cordial  approval.  "I'll  print  both,  Haven," 
he  said,  "in  the  Herald  of  tomorrow  morning  and  I  hope 
we  shall  be  able  to  arouse  some  measure  of  public  opinion." 
On  buying  my  Herald  the  following  morning,  I  found  not 
only  that  the  protest  had  been  printed  with  the  scratched 
ballot  in  facsimile,  but  that  Browne  had  written  a  strong 
editorial  emphasizing  the  importance  for  the  State  and 
for  the  country  of  this  "revolt  of  the  independent  Repub- 
licans." I  thought  that  was  rather  a  large  name  to  give 
to  a  movement  which,  for  the  moment  at  least,  comprised 


1 84  Avocations 

only  three  youngsters  and  one  editor.  I  found,  however, 
in  turning  to  the  text  of  the  appeal  to  Republicans,  that 
instead  of  printing  this  as  we  had  worded  it,  with  our 
three  names  signed  as  individual  Republicans  asking  for 
co-operation  from  those  who  agreed  with  us,  Browne  had 
made  a  slight  change  in  the  wording  of  the  last  sentence 
and  had  printed  our  three  names  as  constituting  the 
"executive  committee  of  the  Independent  Republican 
Association  of  the  State  of  New  York."  As  I  was  not 
responsible  for  this  not  very  accurate  and  rather  grandilo- 
quent description  of  our  organization,  I  could  not  feel 
particularly  indignant  at  the  change  that  had  been  made 
by  our  editorial  adviser.  It  is  probable  also  that  in  this 
instance,  the  inaccuracy  or  exaggeration  of  statement  may 
be  considered  as  having  been  justified  by  the  results. 
We  secured  in  the  course  of  the  first  few  weeks,  subscrip- 
tions amounting  to  something  over  five  thousand  dollars. 
One  of  the  first  checks  that  came  in  to  me  was  one  for 
four  hundred  dollars  from  John  M.  Forbes,  a  good  citizen 
of  Massachusetts  who  had  been  able  during  the  war  to 
render  great  service  to  Lincoln's  administration  and  to 
the  country.  Forbes  held  no  office,  but  as  a  merchant  of 
wide  experience  and  large  influence  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  he  had  been  called  upon  for  counsel  by  the  Pre- 
sident or  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  connection 
with  the  issue  of  the  seven-thirty  loan.  In  1863,  in  the 
darkest  months  of  the  struggle,  Forbes  went  to  England 
with  a  couple  of  trunks  filled  with  seven-thirty  bonds 
and  used  his  private  influence,  connections,  and  credit 
to  get  these  bonds  placed  in  all  possible  channels.  It 
must  have  been  no  little  satisfaction  for  him  to  realize 
later  that  his  European  friends  who  had  trusted  his  word 
secured  satisfactory  profits  from  their  investment. 

Forbes  wrote  with  his  check  apologizing  for  interfer- 
ence on  the  part  of  a  Massachusetts  man  in  a  matter  of 


The  Election  of  Hayes  185 

New  York  State  politics,  but  he  said:  "I  find  myself  cor- 
dially interested  in  your  protest  and  your  appeal.  The 
question  is  one  that  in  principle  at  least  concerns  the 
Republican  party  and  independent  voters  generally 
throughout  the  whole  country." 

It  was,  of  course,  not  practicable  for  us  youngsters  to 
establish  before  election  any  machinery,  or  even  any  ade- 
quate correspondence  throughout  the  State.  We  did, 
however,  succeed  in  interesting  a  number  of  the  leading 
editors  who  from  time  to  time  brought  our  protest  and 
our  scratched  ballot  into  print,  and  we  secured  also  in 
a  number  of  the  larger  towns  of  the  State  representatives 
who  were  willing  to  help  in  distributing  the  form  of  ballot 
and  in  working  up  local  opinion  in  behalf  of  "our  ticket." 
We  had  not  sufficient  money  for  the  hiring  of  halls  or  the 
holding  of  meetings.  We  used  our  funds  principally  for 
postage  and  for  the  distribution  of  a  number  of  thousands 
of  copies  of  the  protest  and  the  form  of  scratch  ballot. 
The  appeal  was  printed  as  a  Republican  document  ad- 
dressed "to  Republicans,"  and  we  were  able  to  secure 
its  distribution  at  a  large  number  of  the  Cornell  Repub- 
lican meetings  that  were  held  throughout  the  State.  John 
Kelly,  who  had  before  been  apprehensive  that  his  antago- 
nist Governor  Robinson  was  going  to  be  re-elected,  became 
convinced  that  this  re-election  was  made  much  more  prob- 
able by  the  "Republican  revolt,"  and  for  the  purpose  of 
defeating  Robinson,  Kelly  nominated  himself  for  Gov- 
ernor, and  he  ordered  Tammany  Hall  and  Tammany's 
correspondents  throughout  the  State  to  cast  their  votes 
for  him.  The  election  showed  that  Kelly's  calculations 
had  been  well  founded.  He  secured  for  himself  seventy 
thousand  votes,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  this  diversion 
of  Democrats,  Robinson  would  have  been  elected  by  a 
substantial  majority. 

As  a  fact,   Cornell  pulled  through  with  a  sufficient 


1 86  Avocations 

margin,  but  the  Republican  candidate  for  State  engineer, 
Mr.  Soule,  was  defeated  by  twenty  thousand  votes.  It 
was  by  these  votes  cast  against  Soule,  votes  which  were 
not  confused  by  a  third  candidate,  that  the  "Young 
Scratchers,"  as  we  had  come  to  be  called,  were  able  to 
measure  the  result  of  their  labours.  These  20,000  votes 
were  our  votes,  and  they  made  clear  that  the  defeat  of 
Soule  had  been  brought  about  by  the  scratched  ballot, 
and  that  if  John  Kelly  had  not  come  to  the  rescue  of  the 
Republican  machine,  Cornell  would  have  been  defeated 
by  the  same  margin. 

The  morning  after  the  election,  the  Democratic  candi- 
date for  State  engineer,  Mr.  Horatio  Seymour,  Jr.,  whom 
I  had,  I  admit,  entirely  forgotten,  came  in  to  express  his 
appreciation  of  the  great  service  I  had  rendered  in  secur- 
ing his  election,  and,  incidentally,  to  ask  me  "what  I 
wanted."  It  happened  that  there  was  nothing  in  the 
line  of  the  business  or  contracts  under  the  control  of  the 
State  engineer  which  I  was  in  a  position  to  utilize  for 
furthering  the  publishing  business,  and  Mr.  Seymour  went 
away  somewhat  puzzled  as  to  what  had  been  the  motive 
of  this  particular  citizen  in  going  into  politics.  Later  in 
the  day,  I  received  another  call  that  interested  me  still 
more.  Mr.  Tilden,  whose  home  in  Gramercy  Park  was  a 
short  distance  from  my  office  in  Fifth  Avenue,  came  in 
to  shake  me  by  the  hand  and  to  tender  his  congratulations 
for  the  good  work  that  I  had  rendered  to  the  cause  of 
independence  in  politics.  He  added  to  his  congratulations 
an  invitation  to  spend  the  night  with  him  at  Greystone, 
his  beautiful  home  in  Yonkers.  I  was  foolish  enough  to 
decline  the  invitation.  I  was  still  too  much  of  a  Repub- 
lican to  be  able  to  overcome  a  certain  feeling  of  aversion 
at  being  congratulated  by  a  Democrat,  and  particularly 
by  such  a  wily  old  Democrat  as  we  believed  Tilden  to  be. 
I  should  doubtless  have  had  a  very  interesting  evening  at 


The  "  Young  Scratchers"  187 

Greystone.  Tilden  was  very  nearly  a  great  man;  and  he 
certainly  rendered  noteworthy  service  to  the  State  and 
to  the  country  in  his  capable  leadership  of  the  fight  against 
Tweed  and  the  Tammany  of  Tweed's  day.  He  was, 
however,  not  fitted  to  gain  success  as  a  popular  leader. 
He  found  it  difficult  to  have  faith  in  other  men,  and  he 
did  not  impress  upon  other  men  confidence  in  himself. 
He  brought  into  politics  the  tendency  to  methods  of 
chicanery  which  are  so  apt  to  characterize  the  politics 
of  lawyers.  It  is  now  clear  from  the  history  that  serious 
frauds  had  been  planned  or  connived  at  in  Louisiana  and 
in  Florida  by  the  Republican  leaders  in  the  effort  to  retain 
for  the  Republican  party  the  control  of  the  Presidency. 
It  is  also  clear,  however,  that  the  methods  of  Tilden's 
campaign  managers  in  Oregon  and  in  South  Carolina  were 
open  to  grave  criticism.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  so  good 
a  cause  as  the  Democrats  had  in  1876  should  have  been 
marred  by  bad  management  and  unworthy  practices. 

I  have  nothing  to  regret  in  looking  back  in  the  part  I 
took  in  the  work  of  the  "Young  Scratchers'  Campaign." 
I  think  that  the  three  youngsters  who  through  this 
movement  made  their  entrance  into  politics,  are  entitled 
to  the  credit  of  initiating  for  the  State  of  New  York, 
and  for  States  outside  of  New  York,  the  great  cause  of 
Mugwumpery.  I  believe  in  the  necessity  of  party  gov- 
ernment, but  I  hold  now,  as  I  did  nearly  forty  years 
back,  that  the  influence  of  independent  voters  who  are 
prepared  to  take  action  from  time  to  time  between  the 
two  parties  and  who  refuse  to  accept  party  dictations 
that  are  contrary  to  the  interests  of  the  community,  is 
absolutely  essential  for  maintaining  any  wholesome  or 
decent  party  leadership  and  party  policy.  In  fact,  if 
only  for  the  political  advantage  of  the  party  itself,  the 
party  leaders  ought  to  welcome  such  measure  of  indepen- 
dent action  as  will  help  them  to  keep  in  subordination 


1 88  Avocations 

the  lower  elements  in  their  own  party  groups.  The 
selection  on  the  part  of  a  nominating  convention  of  can- 
didates representing  the  higher  standard  of  party  action 
in  preference  to  the  men  backed  by  the  self-seeking  poli- 
tical tricksters,  has  not  infrequently  been  decided  by  the 
risk  or  by  the  certainty  that  the  nomination  of  the  party 
hack  or  tool  would  mean  the  defection  at  the  election  of 
a  substantial  group  of  independent  voters.  The  power 
of  the  in-between  group  of  voters  who  stand,  so  to  speak, 
at  the  centre  of  the  tilting  board,  should,  of  course,  be 
exercised  not  spasmodically  or  perversely.  I  remember 
explaining  in  a  speech  at  the  time  that  "it  is  the  wise 
Mugwump  that  knows  when  to  wump." 

The  political  activities  of  the  "Young  Scratchers"  com- 
mittee did  not  come  to  a  close  with  the  State  election  of 
1 879.  We  found  ourselves  keenly  interested  in  the  Presi- 
dential contest  that  began  to  take  shape  early  in  1880. 
A  movement  had  developed  within  the  Republican  party 
for  the  renomination  of  General  Grant,  the  second  term 
of  whose  Presidency  had  been  completed  four  years  back. 
The  active  leaders  in  the  party  were  not  personally  in 
favour  of  giving  to  Grant  a  third  term,  and  each  leader 
would  naturally  have  preferred  to  secure  the  nomination 
for  himself.  The  groups  of  the  more  active  voters  were, 
however,  divided  between  the  more  prominent  candidates 
so  nearly  equally  that  it  did  not  seem  possible  to  secure 
for  any  one  candidate  the  support  of  a  majority  of  the 
convention,  and  each  of  the  competitors  preferred  the 
nomination  of  Grant  to  the  success  of  one  of  his  immediate 
opponents.  The  general  sentiment  throughout  the  coun- 
try, still  strongly  appreciative  of  the  great  service  ren- 
dered by  the  General  in  bringing  the  war  to  a  successful 
close,  was  probably  prepared  to  render  the  further 
recognition  of  a  third  Presidential  term.  The  speculative 
interests  in  the  party,  the  groups  representing  commercial 


The  "Young  Scratchers"  189 

undertakings  that  had  during  Grant's  second  term  brought 
the  Administration  so  largely  into  disrepute,  and  that  had 
made  profits  out  of  government  contracts  and  of  govern- 
ment influence,  were  strongly  in  favour  of  putting  the 
General  again  into  the  White  House.  They  felt,  with 
knowledge  of  the  happenings  of  his  second  term,  that 
they  could  manage  Grant,  and  there  was,  unfortunately, 
ground  for  the  feeling.  These  speculators  believed  that 
Grant  was  a  man  who  in  civil  affairs  could  be  hoodwinked. 
Grant's  simple-heartedness,  his  faith  in  his  friends,  his 
unwillingness  to  believe  that  any  man  who  had  done  good 
service  during  the  war  could  be  unfaithful  to  a  trust,  had 
brought  no  little  trouble  on  his  Administration.  The 
President's  influence  had  been  utilized  to  protect  specu- 
lators like  Shepherd  and  weak-minded  tools  like  Belknap ; 
and  during  the  second  four  years  of  Grant's  Presidency, 
Washington  had  become  the  scene  of  not  a  few  disreput- 
able speculations.  The  actual  character  of  these  specu- 
lative undertakings  and  the  extent  of  the  corrupt  influence 
that  had  grown  up  about  the  simple-hearted  old  General 
were  not  at  the  time  fully  understood  throughout  the 
country.  It  seemed  probable  that  if  Grant's  nomination 
for  a  third  term  could  have  been  brought  about,  he  would 
have  secured  a  satisfactory  majority  of  the  popular  vote. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  independent  wing  of  the  Republi- 
can party,  which  included  all  the  civil-service  reformers, 
was  decidedly  opposed  to  a  third  term  for  Grant.  These 
men  realized  that  Grant  had  never  understood  the  pur- 
pose of  or  the  character  of  the  civil-service-reform  move- 
ment. They  knew  that  he  had  trusted  the  direction  of 
administrative  matters  largely  to  men  who  were  direct  op- 
ponents of  the  reforms  that  we  had  at  heart.  They  had 
noted  with  criticism  and  with  indignation  the  bad  ad- 
ministrative record  of  Grant's  second  term.  Those  of 
us  in  the  group  who  as  old  soldiers  had  an  affectionate 


190  Avocations 

personal  regard  for  our  General  were  anxious,  for  the 
sake  of  his  own  final  repute,  to  save  him  from  the  risk  of 
further  criticism  on  the  ground  of  bad  administration  of 
executive  responsibilities.  It  was  not  merely  a  matter 
of  protecting  the  country,  but  of  saving  the  repute  of  one 
of  the  country's  heroes.  There  was,  therefore,  from  New 
York  City  strong  opposition  to  the  renomination  of  Grant, 
an  opposition  which  secured  support  throughout  New 
England  and 'elsewhere  on  the  general  ground  of  the  unde- 
sirability  of  breaking  the  precedent  set  by  Washington 
and  supported  by  all  of  Washington's  successors.  Our 
forefathers  had  decided  that  it  was  not  wise  to  extend  a 
President's  office  beyond  two  terms,  and  a  large  number 
of  conservative  citizens  in  the  East  at  least  (the  West  was 
much  less  influenced  by  what  they  called  "an  academic 
objection")  were  determined  to  prevent  such  precedent 
from  being  made.  The  "Young  Scratchers,"  while  re- 
presenting, as  they  themselves  very  well  understood,  but 
a  mere  fraction  of  political  power  in  the  Union,  were, 
nevertheless,  able  to  contribute  their  measure  of  service 
to  defeating  the  nomination  of  Grant.  We  sent  a  delega- 
tion to  Chicago  with  enough  money  to  secure  headquarters 
on  one  of  the  thoroughfares.  The  building  was  small, 
so  small  in  fact  that  the  banner  we  placed  upon  it  covered 
the  entire  front.  The  banner  carried  some  such  emblem 
as  this:  "No  third  term.  No  Republican  candidate  can 
be  elected  who  cannot  carry  New  York.  The  vote  of 
New  York  is  controlled  by  the  independents.  Read  the 
figures."  Below  this  last  line  were  placed  the  figures  of 
the  latest  State  election,  figures  which  showed  that  the 
State,  closely  balanced  as  it  was  between  the  Democrats 
and  the  Republicans,  might  easily  be  controlled  for  the 
national  election,  as  it  had  been  for  the  State  election,  by 
the  twenty  thousand  voters  who  were  classed  as  indepen- 
dents. During  the  first  balloting,  Grant  came  several 


The  "Young  Scratchers"  191 

times  within  seven  or  eight  votes  of  the  nomination.  Our 
committee  took  pains  from  morning  to  morning  to  place 
in  the  hands  of  the  delegates  as  they  went  into  the  hall, 
and  particularly  those  of  the  doubtful  delegates  and  of 
the  coloured  men  from  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi, 
printed  slips  containing  the  figures  of  the  latest  election 
in  New  York.  The  statements  in  these  slips  we  had  occa- 
sion to  repeat  from  day  to  day  in  personal  conversation 
with  the  delegates,  and  particularly  with  the  coloured 
delegates,  in  their  headquarters.  We  knew  that  these 
coloured  men  were  very  anxious  for  the  success  of  the 
Republican  candidate.  They  had  in  fact  not  been  able 
to  free  themselves  from  the  apprehension  that  the  success 
of  a  wicked  Democrat  might  lead  to  the  restoration  of 
slavery  conditions.  Our  point  was  clear  and  was  repeated 
from  day  to  day.  If  you  renominate  Grant,  New  York 
will  go  Democratic  and  a  Democrat  will  become  President. 
Grant's  managers  were  unable  to  secure  from  the  coloured 
groups  the  seven  or  eight  votes  that  were  required,  and 
very  much  to  the  disappointment  of  these  managers,  and 
particularly  of  John  Sherman,  the  nomination  finally 
went  to  a  candidate  who  had  hardly  been  thought  of  as 
prominent  among  the  leaders,  James  A.  Garfield. 

The  nomination  and  election  of  Garfield  brought,  two 
years  later,  through  the  pistol  of  Guiteau,  the  Presidency 
to  Chester  A.  Arthur.  Arthur  himself  belonged  to  the  ma- 
chine group  of  the  Republican  party,  and  had  been  nomi- 
nated as  Vice-President  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  placating 
this  all-important  wing  of  the  party.  Our  committee  re- 
turned from  Chicago  with  the  feeling  that,  small  in  numbers 
as  we  were,  we  had  been  able  to  exert  an  important  influ- 
ence in  connection  with  the  nomination,  and  that  we  had, 
therefore,  had  our  share  in  shaping  the  history  of  the 
country.  With  this  achievement,  we  brought  the  work  of 
the  committee  to  a  close  and  adjourned  sine  die. 


CHAPTER  VIH 
Oxford 

Worcester  College.  In  1868,  I  made  a  trip  to  Oxford, 
carrying  some  letters  of  introduction  to  old  friends  of  my 
father's,  and  I  was  able  to  begin  with  the  group  of  Oxford 
scholars  pleasant  relations  that  have  now  continued  for 
nearly  half  a  century.  In  looking  back  over  the  experi- 
ences of  the  successive  visits  of  these  years,  I  feel  an  increas- 
ing measure  of  obligations  to  the  Oxford  friends,  older  and 
younger,  who  have  admitted  me  into  their  college  circles 
and  have  given  me  the  official  hospitality  of  the  hall  and 
of  the  common  room,  and,  what  is  still  more  to  be  valued, 
have  honoured  me  with  the  personal  relation  of  the  late 
evening  hour  in  the  study.  It  has  been  my  experience 
that  the  Oxford  don  is  a  very  much  more  distinctive  and 
more  human  person  to  have  to  do  with  when  he  is  taking 
his  second  or  third  pipe  at  midnight  than  at  any  other 
hour;  or  to  put  it  in  another  way,  that  possibly  only  at 
that  hour  does  one  come  into  touch  with  the  real  man. 

The  sadness,  in  looking  back  over  the  half -century,  is 
the  memory  of  good  Oxford  friends  who  from  year  to 
year  during  that  period  have  gone  over  to  "the  majority." 
The  circle  has  broken  sadly,  and  while  younger  men  have 
taken  up  the  work  of  those  who  have  gone,  and  in  certain 
cases,  at  least,  may  have  been  doing  better  work,  and  may 
sometimes  even  be  more  interesting  as  individual  char- 

192 


Worcester  College  193 

acters  than  those  who  preceded  them,  there  can  never  be 
just  the  same  feeling  of  sympathetic  intimacy  with  the 
generation  younger  than  one's  own.  My  father's  name 
had  been  pleasantly  remembered  in  Oxford  not  only  by 
certain  of  the  older  booksellers  (I  recall  among  others  that 
typical  Englishman,  James  Parker),  but  by  not  a  few  of 
the  scholars  and  dons. 

I  was  fully  impressed  with  the  glory  of  dining  in  hall, 
first  in  Worcester  with  Alfred  Church,  and  later  in  Exeter 
with  Paul  Willert  and  in  Christ  Church  with  Frederick 
York  Powell.  My  intimacy  with  Balliol  came  later.  It 
was  through  the  hospitality  of  young  Alfred  Church, 
whose  father  I  had  come  to  know  in  London,  that  I  secured 
the  privilege  of  pernoctating  in  Worcester  College.  I 
remember  writing  home  of  the  feeling  of  detachment 
that  came  to  me  in  securing  after  ten  o'clock  the  protec- 
tion of  the  locked  door  of  the  college,  and,  with  the  name 
of  Smith  on  the  door  of  my  apartments,  of  being  in  a 
position  to  put  to  one  side  all  thought  of  responsibility 
for  wife  or  for  daughters. 

The  active  head  of  Worcester  of  that  day,  Jackson,  was 
good  enough  to  take  me  into  the  college  circle,  and  my 
relations  with  him  continued  during  the  years  of  his  life. 
He  impressed  me  as  a  man  of  sweet  nature,  lacking  per- 
haps somewhat  in  energy  or  in  intellectual  ambition.  I 
remember  speaking  to  him  from  time  to  time  of  the  mag- 
num opus  that  he  was  supposed  to  have  in  train,  but  the 
possibility  of  completing  a  literary  work  was  always  put 
to  one  side  with  the  word  that  the  days  were  too  full. 

A  Worcester  man  for  whom  the  days  were  never  too 
full  was  the  truculent  economist,  Thorold  Rogers.  His 
lectures  were  well  attended,  and  impressed  me  at  once  as 
free  from  any  dry-as-dust  character.  He  made  a  practice 
of  illuminating  his  descriptions  of  old-time  economic 
conditions  with  references  to  later  political  action  which 

13 


194  Oxford 

was  affecting  the  conditions  of  today.  He  was  liberal  or 
radical  to  the  point  of  fierceness,  and  was  quite  ready  to 
utilize  a  college  lecture  for  a  sharp  analysis  of  the  prin- 
ciples or  the  policies  of  Tory  leaders  referred  to  by  name. 
Rogers  was  a  family  man,  and  his  home  was  outside  of 
the  college,  but  his  study  was  preserved  in  a  scholastic 
atmosphere  of  dust  such  as  might  have  been  permissible 
if  no  woman  had  been  within  reach.  He  told  me  that 
wife. and  daughter  were  strictly  prohibited  from  touching 
anything  within  that  particular  room.  As  a  result,  he 
was  able  when  working  out  for  me  the  plan  of  a  campaign 
in  the  Low  Countries  (he  was  writing  for  me  at  the  time  a 
history  of  Holland)  to  draw  a  diagram  with  his  finger  on 
the  dust  of  the  desk,  and  there  was  no  difficulty  in  tracing, 
through  the  dust,  the  movements  of  the  armies. 

I  could  not  always  keep  his  talk  confined  to  the  business 
in  hand,  whether  it  was  history  or  economics.  We  pub- 
lished for  him  later  a  series  of  books  based  upon  his  eco- 
nomic lectures.  He  was  apt  to  break  into  the  immediate 
subject  by  the  reading  of  his  latest  satire.  He  had  in  a 
special  drawer  of  the  desk  a  group  of  satirical  writings, 
added  to  from  time  to  time,  partly  political,  partly  social, 
and  in  not  a  few  cases  presenting  sharp  descriptions  of 
Oxford  conditions.  Rogers  had  real  wit  and  power  of 
conversation  and  imagination.  The  charm  of  his  conver- 
sation was  hampered  by  a  tendency  to  bitterness  and  by  a 
lack  of  respect  for  limitations.  For  the  sake  of  making  a 
point  he  would  yield  to  the  temptation  of  committing 
an  injustice,  and  he  would  not  always  keep  his  references 
within  the  bounds  of  graceful  or  even  decent  expression, 
but  he  was  a  real  addition  to  the  intellectual  force  of  Ox- 
ford and  of  England,  and  his  work  in  economic  statistics 
continues,  as  I  understand,  to  possess  value  and  impor- 
tance. 

In  Worcester  College,  I  came  to  know  in  later  years 


Worcester  College  195 

Henry  T.  Gerrans  and  his  cheery  and  capable  wife.  They 
impressed  me  as  an  admirable  pair  of  chums.  Mrs. 
Gerrans,  who  is  a  Canadian,  has  shown  a  faculty,  that  in 
my  national  conceit  I  called  American,  for  direct  co-opera- 
tion in  her  husband's  educational  and  executive  duties. 
He  carried  for  years  responsibilities  in  supervising  the 
work  of  the  University  extension,  and  in  this  his  wife  was 
able  to  be  of  no  little  service.  I  remember  chaffing  her 
one  year  in  which  Gerrans  served  as  senior  Proctor,  be- 
cause she  was  not  permitted  by  the  University  to  join  in 
his  rounds  as  senior  "bulldog."  In  Worcester,  as  in  other 
colleges  later,  I  passed,  from  time  to  time,  from  the  common 
room  of  the  dons  to  one  or  more  of  the  studies  of  under- 
graduates. Some  of  the  youngsters  were  sons  of  the  men 
whom  I  had  known  in  London,  while  others  I  came  to 
know  in  one  way  or  another  during  my  Oxford  sojourns. 
I  found  these  young  Englishmen  attractive  companions. 
They  were  not  active  minded — I  am  speaking,  of  course, 
merely  of  the  majority — and  their  interests  were  often 
limited,  but  they  were  manly  and  they  impressed  me  as 
fine  natured.  Their  standard  of  what  pertained  to  gentle- 
manliness  was  high,  but  not  in  the  least  self-conscious.  It 
was  always  natural.  They  were  reticent,  and  it  was 
rather  difficult  to  draw  out  an  expression  of  beliefs,  whether 
on  matters  of  college  work,  or  university  policy,  or  na- 
tional politics,  or  (last  of  all  perhaps)  in  regard  to  matters 
of  conscience  or  of  religion.  I  gathered  the  impression 
that,  in  the  main,  the  English  young  man  pushes  along 
through  the  responsibilities  of  the  years  by  instinct  rather 
than  by  reason ;  but  the  instinct  seems  to  be  on  the  whole 
a  healthy  one.  The  smaller  group  of  students — the 
honour  men — with  many  of  whom  from  year  to  year  I 
came  into  personal  relations  in  such  colleges  as  Balliol 
or  New,  had  a  different  point  of  view.  They  were  in 
Oxford  not  simply  for  the  sake  of  going  through  the 


196  Oxford 

experience  proper  for  English  gentlemen,  but  because  they 
had  set  their  minds  upon  a  certain  specific  purpose.  They 
were  in  training  for  responsibilities  that  called  for  train- 
ing. They  were,  as  honour  men,  fighting  for  the  success 
in  the  "schools"  (the  honour  examinations)  that  would 
give  them  after  graduation  some  advantage  or  oppor- 
tunities for  getting  posts  and  for  making  a  career  for  them- 
selves. 

Balliol.  Historians  of  Balliol  make  reference  to  the 
very  large  proportion  of  Balliol  men  who  have  been  able 
to  render  distinctive  service  to  the  Empire.  During  the 
last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Dr.  Jowett  was, 
as  Master  of  Balliol,  called  upon  by  successive  administra- 
tions, Liberal  and  Conservative,  to  supply  Balliol  men  for 
positions  requiring  training,  character,  and  capacity. 
The  list  of  these  men  who  have  achieved  distinction  in 
responsibilities  at  different  points  of  the  Empire  and  in 
the  control  of  the  Empire  itself  shows  the  exceptional 
importance  of  the  work  done  in  one  college. 

The  personality  of  Dr.  Jowett  was  itself  an  important 
factor  in  securing  prestige  for  the  college  and  places  for 
its  graduates,  but  the  standard  of  work  done  in  the  col- 
lege and  the  distinctive  excellence  of  the  men  turned  out 
from  Balliol  from  year  to  year  has  been  well  maintained 
since  Jowett's  death  under  his  successor  Caird  and  under 
the  present  Master,  my  valued  friend  Strachan-Davidson. 

Colleges  like  New,  Corpus  Christi,  and  in  later  years 
University  have  secured  an  increasing  proportion  of  the 
prizes  in  the  honour  examinations,  but  with  Balliol  re- 
mains still  the  reputation  of  being  the  college  of  the  sev- 
eral British  universities  that  is  best  known  not  only 
throughout  the  Empire,  but  in  the  United  States  and  on 
the  Continent. 

I  have  had  the  privilege  of  attending  lectures  by  the 
Balliol  dons,  a  circle  which  has  included  some  of  the  best 


Balliol  197 

lecturers  in  the  University.  I  remember  most  particu- 
larly those  of  Nettleship  on  Plato,  A.  L.  Smith  on  the 
Emperor  Frederick,  Wonder  of  the  World,  J.  A.  Smith  on 
some  philosophical  subjects,  and  Abbott  on  Pericles. 

It  is  not  merely,  however,  for  intellectual  service  that  I 
have  found  myself  indebted  to  Balliol.  I  remember  an 
occasion  when,  having  my  wife  with  me,  I  was  living  not 
in  the  college  but  in  Wellington  Square,  and  I  had  plan- 
ned a  couple  of  small  dinner  gatherings  at  which  I  could 
introduce  to  her  some  of  my  friends  among  the  dons. 
I  asked  the  junior  bursar  of  Balliol  where  I  had  bet- 
ter buy  the  few  bottles  of  claret,  etc.,  that  I  needed 
for  my  festivities,  and  he  gave  me  his  card  to  the  wine 
merchants  who  supplied  the  college.  In  going  to  the 
address  specified,  I  found  myself  not  in  a  wine  shop  but 
at  the  door  of  what  appeared  to  be  a  private  residence. 
The  door  was  opened  by  a  dignified  old  gentleman,  who 
with  his  partner,  also  of  mature  years,  represented  the 
wine-selling  establishment.  I  apologized  for  intruding 
with  a  very  retail  requirement  in  what  had  every  appear- 
ance of  being  a  wholesale  concern.  "Perfectly  all  right, 
sir,"  said  the  wine  merchant,  "for  any  gentleman  coming 
from  Balliol  College."  I  then  named  my  modest  require- 
ments for  the  dinners  in  question,  laying  particular  stress 
upon  the  item  of  claret.  "Would  you  mind  telling  me, 
sir,"  said  the  wine  merchant,  "what  college  your  friends 
are  from?"  "Certainly,"  I  replied,  "but  I  am  a  little 
puzzled  to  know  why  you  are  interested."  "Why,  sir," 
he  said,  evidently  with  the  intention  of  treating  a  client 
from  Balliol  with  the  utmost  fairness,  "if  you  are  having 
gentlement  from  Jesus  or  from  Keble,  an  ordinary  claret 
would  do ;  but  if  your  friends  are  from  All  Souls,  or  from 
Magdalen,  for  instance,  you  would  need  something  rather 
special."  I  was  obliged  to  admit  that  one  or  more  of  my 
friends  came  from  the  colleges  possessing  the  higher 


198  Oxford 

standard,  and  the  wine  merchant  and  I  agreed  together 
that  in  that  case  the  other  fellows  must  get  the  benefit 
of  the  All  Souls  quality  of  claret. 

It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  be  a  guest  in  Balliol 
College  from  spring  to  spring,  during  a  period  of  nearly 
forty  years.  J.  L.  Strachan-Davidson,  for  many  years  the 
Dean  and  at  this  time,  1915,  the  Master  of  the  college, 
has  been  my  immediate  host,  but  all  the  members  of  the 
faculty  have  taken  their  share  in  the  hospitality,  so  that 
the  common  room  of  Balliol  has  had  for  me  a  very  homelike 
feeling.  I  have  known  no  gathering  in  which  I  have 
found  such  a  charming  combination  of  intellectual  interest, 
social  charm,  and  large-minded  sympathy  for  quidquid 
agunt  homines  within  and  without  the  University,  as  I 
have  come  into  touch  with  in  the  Balliol  common  room. 
During  my  knowledge  of  this  circle,  not  a  few  of  its  good 
men  have  "joined  the  majority,"  but  there  remain  certain 
of  the  seniors,  such  as  the  Master  and  the  present  Dean, 
my  brilliant  friend,  A.  L.  Smith,  who  continue  the  high 
traditions  of  Balliol,  and  men  of  the  succeeding  generation 
like  that  conscientious  and  capable  scholar,  my  good  friend 
H.  W.  C.  Davis,  whose  work  shows  that  the  high  standard 
of  Balliol  is  to  be  maintained.  The  college  has,  as  here- 
tofore, been  fortunate  in  filling  the  places  that  had  become 
vacant  with  younger  men  of  high  attainments,  distinctive 
character,  and  large  promise  for  the  future.  I  have  found 
myself  interested  in  sitting  at  the  high  table  at  one  of  the 
Sunday  dinners  in  June,  in  getting  out  of  the  reticence  of 
some  attractive  youngster  who  had  been  out  of  college 
for  eight  or  ten  years  and  had  come  back  for  a  greeting 
with  his  old  instructors,  some  account  of  his  experience 
in  service  at  a  frontier  post. 

Balliol  has  maintained  the  tradition  for  which  Dr. 
Jowett  was  largely  responsible,  of  training  good  men  for 
the  service  of  the  Empire.  It  is  the  man  whose  experience 


Evelyn  Abbott  199 

has  been  the  most  distinctive  from  whom  it  is  as  a  rule 
most  difficult  to  secure  a  word  of  personal  reminiscence. 
With  tactful  effort,  however,  I  have  been  able  from  time 
to  time  to  extract  from  my  modest  young  Englishman  a 
bit  of  a  story.  I  remember  one  case  in  which  my  neigh- 
bour at  the  table  explained  that  he  had  for  a  couple  of 
years  been  holding  the  post  of  resident  adviser  to  one  of  the 
Indian  princes  in  the  north,  and  his  general  instructions 
were  that  the  Prince  must  be  kept  in  good  humour,  that 
there  should  be  no  spasmodic  or  ill-advised  taxation  of 
the  people,  that  the  Prince's  army  should  be  maintained 
in  efficient  condition,  and,  above  all,  that  the  resident 
must  take  care  to  avoid  giving  the  impression  that  there 
was  any  intention  on  his  part  to  dominate  the  situation. 
Whatever  counsel  he  found  it  important  to  give  was  to 
be  presented  as  a  suggestion. 

I  imagine  that  such  a  responsibility  has  been  shared  by 
hundreds  of  "resident  advisers"  throughout  the  British 
Empire,  and  as  far  as  we  can  judge  the  history,  these 
young  Englishmen  have  shown  themselves  men  of  tact, 
discretion,  and  courage.  If  the  British  Empire,  partic- 
ularly during  the  last  century,  has  been  well  ruled,  the 
success  has  been  due  in  the  main  to  capable,  fine-natured 
youngsters  who  have  gone  out  with  the  right  kind  of 
college  training  and  who  have  rapidly  developed  under 
responsibilities  often  exacting. 

Evelyn  Abbott.  On  one  of  my  earlier  visits  to  Balliol 
College,  my  attention  was  directed  to  a  Bath  chair  which 
was  being  drawn  across  the  quad  and  in  which  rested  a 
distinctive  and  attractive  figure.  I  was  impressed  by  the 
strength  and  majesty  of  the  lines  of  the  head  and  the 
beauty,  dignity,  and  expression  of  the  eyes  and  brow.  The 
beautiful  great  head  was  placed  on  massive  shoulders  but 
it  was  evident  from  the  space  occupied  by  the  coverings 
that  the  lower  portion  of  the  figure  was  shrunken  and 


200  Oxford 

crippled.  The  expression  of  the  face  was,  however,  not 
such  as  one  may  often  see  associated  with  permanent  or 
with  continued  invalidism.  It  was  quietly  and  cheerfully 
philosophical.  The  man  in  the  chair  appeared  to  be  tak- 
ing in  from  the  world  about  him  and  from  the  universe 
all  that  there  was  to  get  and  to  be  devoting  to  the  life  that 
was  available  for  him  his  own  best  thought  and  will  power. 
I  learned  that  the  beautiful  cripple  was  Evelyn  Abbott, 
a  history  Don  of  Balliol.  Later,  I  was  interested  in  secur- 
ing from  Balliol  friends  the  incidents  of  his  career.  Abbott 
had  been  an  "honour"  scholar  in  the  college  and  had,  at 
a  comparatively  young  age,  been  elected  a  fellow.  He  was 
a  well-built  man  with  athletic  powers  and  interests  and 
had  been  an  active  member  of  the  Alpine  Club.  During 
a  vacation  trip  in  Switzerland,  he  had  with  a  few  fellow- 
climbers  devoted  an  afternoon  to  the  ascent  of  an  Alpine 
slope  which  presented  no  particular  difficulties  and  with 
which,  in  fact,  several  of  the  party  were  already  familiar. 
On  their  return,  late  in  the  afternoon,  they  were  over- 
taken by  an  avalanche.  The  fall  of  snow  and  the  momen- 
tum of  the  mass  was  not  sufficient  to  overwhelm  them  or 
to  carry  them  over  the  lower  edge  of  the  cliff.  They  were 
able  while  in  large  part  buried  in  the  snow  to  hold  their 
position  on  the  slope,  but  they  did  not  find  it  possible  to 
free  themselves  from  the  snow  and  they  lay  half  buried 
through  the  long  night.  In  the  morning  they  were  rescued 
in  due  course  by  a  search  party  and  were  apparently  not 
seriously  injured  by  the  exceptional  exposure;  but  some 
time  afterwards  in  the  case  of  Abbott,  paralysis  set  in 
with  the  result  that  his  lower  limbs  became  withered  and 
useless.  At  the  time  I  first  met  him  he  was  about  fifty- 
five  years  of  age  and  had  passed  thirty  years  of  his  life  on 
a  sofa  or  in  a  Bath  chair.  He  had  not  permitted  these  to 
be  idle  years.  He  had  carried  on  work  as  one  of  the  most 
successful  of  the  history  teachers  in  a  college  which  was 


Evelyn  Abbott  201 

at  the  front  of  historical  teaching  in  England.  He  was 
also  an  important  member  of  the  administrative  body  in 
which  his  varied  knowledge  of  affairs  was  of  exceptional 
value.  He  held  for  years  the  office  of  librarian  and  was 
able,  with  a  well-adjusted  library  chair,  to  make  the 
rounds  of  the  shelves  and  to  give  in  the  library  instruc- 
tions and  suggestions  for  the  reading  of  advanced  pupils. 
He  accepted  a  commission  for  carrying  on  the  editorial 
supervision  of  a  series  of  historical  biographies  that  I  had 
in  course  of  publication  entitled  Heroes  of  the  Nations. 
A  large  number  of  the  contributors  to  this  series  were 
English  scholars  and  the  majority  of  these  were  graduates 
of  the  Oxford  history  school.  Abbott's  editorial  work 
was  characterized,  as  were  all  his  personal  relations,  by 
keen  conscientiousness,  wide  and  varied  information,  per- 
ception of  character,  and  unremitting  patience.  It  seemed 
impossible  to  ruffle  his  imperturbability.  The  expression 
of  his  eyes  and  of  his  brow  constituted  in  itself  a  lesson  in 
patience  and  in  something  more  than  patience,  the  will 
power  to  control  conditions. 

He  had  strong  convictions  but  I  never  heard  from  him 
an  expression  of  opinion  that  touched  upon  bitterness. 
His  oldest  friend  and  closest  associate  in  the  college  (and 
for  that  matter  in  the  world)  was  Strachan-Davidson,  who 
was  at  this  time  Dean  of  Balliol  and  who  in  1910  became 
Master.  Davidson  was  and  is  a  man  of  fine  nature  and 
even  temper,  and  notwithstanding  his  Scotch  earnestness 
he  was  very  ready  to  believe  that  the  fellow  who  held  a 
contrary  opinion  was  entitled  to  sympathetic  regard. 
Abbott's  influence  upon  Davidson  and  upon  all  of  his 
associates  in  the  Balliol  faculty  was  valuable  not  only  for 
suggestion  and  co-operation,  but  for  temper  and  atmos- 
phere. This  influence  was  with  his  students  a  beautiful 
force.  Other  instructors  with  possibly  larger  scholar- 
ship, or  with  a  keener  sense  of  humour,  were  more  bril- 


202  Oxford 

liant.  No  teacher  in  Balliol  or  in  Oxford  got  a  better  hold 
on  his  pupils,  and  probably  very  few  got  as  much  out  of 
their  pupils,  as  did  Abbott.  He  secured  from  the  men, 
younger  and  older,  an  affectionate  regard  that  amounted 
to  enthusiasm. 

In  later  years,  at  any  time  when  it  seemed  difficult  to 
endure  with  patience  the  "perversity  of  things"  animate 
and  inanimate,  I  have  found  help  in  the  memory  of  the 
cheery  and  sweet  philosophy  of  my  friend  Evelyn  Abbott. 

At  the  high  table  in  the  common  room  of  Balliol  Col- 
lege, the  guests  are,  of  course,  not  restricted  to  graduates 
of  the  college.  Distinctive  men  from  all  parts  of  the 
Empire  have  found  the  Balliol  common  room  an  agree- 
able and  interesting  meeting  place.  It  represents  in  my 
impression  the  most  attractive  scholarly  circle  that  Great 
Britain  can  produce,  and  I  take  this  opportunity  of  ex- 
pressing a  grateful  appreciation  of  my  privileges  as  a 
continuing  guest.  My  chief  acknowledgment  in  any  refer- 
ence to  Balliol  must,  however,  be  made  for  the  charming 
personal  hospitality  that  has  been  extended  to  me  during 
a  long  series  of  years  by  the  present  Master,  J.  L.  Strachan- 
Davidson,  who  is  now  my  oldest  friend  in  Great  Britain. 
The  Master  shows  an  exceptional  tolerance  in  retaining 
an  affectionate  regard  for  a  man  whose  views  on  a  number 
of  important  matters,  theology,  British  politics,  the  higher 
education  of  women,  etc.,  he  believes  to  be  seriously  hereti- 
cal. Notwithstanding  the  Master's  deferential  courtesy 
and  his  extreme  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  the  other 
fellow,  it  is  very  evident  that  his  own  opinions  are  held 
with  full  earnestness  and  firmness  of  conviction ;  but  with 
a  man  like  Davidson,  difference  of  opinion  is  not  permitted 
to  interfere  with  a  relation  of  friendship.  I  trust  that  I 
shall  not  have  made  an  undue  intrusion  on  the  modesty 
of  my  friend  in  placing  on  record  in  this  volume  my  feeling 
that  he  is  not  only  a  scholar  of  conviction  and  an  executive 


Lincoln  203 

of  large  experience  and  infinite  conscientiousness,  but  a 
high-minded,  fine-natured  gentleman  and  the  best  possible 
representative  of  a  type  that  helps  to  make  the  reputation 
of  Balliol,  of  Oxford,  and  of  Britain. 

Lincoln.  My  first  relations  with  Lincoln  College  came 
through  one  of  its  alumni,  my  old-time  friend,  the  Rev. 
Alfred  Church.  Alfred  Church  was  a  close  associate  of 
Hutton  of  the  Spectator,  and  for  nearly  fifty  years  he  was 
a  steady  contributor  to  the  columns  of  that  journal. 
His  literary  work,  and  all  of  his  work,  represented  a  full 
standard  of  conscientiousness  and  the  best  use  of  his 
learning  and  capacities.  He  had  in  his  own  day  in 
Oxford  won  the  Newdigate,  and  he  had  through  all  his 
life,  and  he  was  a  hard-working  vicar  and  rector  and 
reviewer,  maintained  a  high  literary  ideal. 

In  Lincoln  College,  I  had  the  opportunity  of  listening 
to  my  good  friend  Warde  Fowler,  who  was,  I  believe,  at 
the  time  the  most  effective  lecturer  in  Oxford.  The  first 
lecture  that  I  heard  was  on  Julius  Cassar  and  the  contri- 
bution made  by  Caesar  to  the  organization  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  Fowler  spoke  without  notes  and  with  a  grace  of 
delivery  and  dramatic  effectiveness  which  was  excep- 
tional for  Oxford  and  for  England.  He  did  his  hearers  the 
compliment  of  being  interested  not  only  in  his  subject  but 
in  them,  and  he  certainly  succeeded  in  impressing  upon 
them  a  good  knowledge  of  the  conditions  which  he  was 
describing  and  a  real  picture  of  the  man  who  was  the  great 
figure  of  his  time.  Fowler  has  always  united  thoroughness 
of  scholarship  with  literary  charm.  His  resignation  a 
few  years  later  of  collegiate  work  was  a  great  loss  to 
Lincoln  and  to  Oxford. 

Queens.  My  introduction  to  Queens  College  was 
under  the  invitation  of  so  good  a  representative  of  the 
college  and  of  British  scholarship  as  Professor  Sayce. 
The  evening  was  a  pleasant  one  for  myself,  but  I  recall  that 


204  Oxford 

it  was  attended  with  some  annoyance  for  my  host.  He 
had,  it  seems,  on  the  day  in  question  experienced  two  mis- 
fortunes. He  had  been  kicked  by  a  mule,  and  his  latest 
book  had  been  reviewed,  and  unfavourably  reviewed,  by 
a  literary  worker  whom  we  may  call  C.  D.  His  friends 
in  the  common  room  were  condoling  with  him  on  the 
two  misfortunes,  and  one  suggested  that  it  would  have 
been  better  for  him  to  have  arranged  to  be  kicked  by 
C.  D.  and  reviewed  by  the  mule,  a  suggestion  that  Sayce, 
with  his  decided  view  as  to  the  mulishness  of  this  par- 
ticular reviewer,  was  prepared  to  accept. 

Later,  I  came  into  pleasant  relations  with  another  good 
scholar,  who  was  for  many  years  bursar  of  the  college, 
Edward  Armstrong.  Armstrong  has  made  himself  an 
accepted  authority  on  the  history  of  Italy  and  of  Spain, 
and  is  the  author  of  books  which  unite  assured  scholar- 
ship with  literary  charm.  There  have  been  times  in 
Queens  (as  in  fact  a  few  other  of  the  colleges  of  both  uni- 
versities) when  the  bursars  have  found  perplexity  with 
their  balance  sheets.  I  was  told  once  on  a  visit  to  Queens 
that  a  recent  fire  which  had  destroyed  some  rooms  in  the 
college  had  broken  out  over  the  bursar's  office  and  was 
supposed  to  have  been  due  to  the  "over-cooking"  of  his 
accounts. 

During  one  of  my  annual  visits  to  Oxford,  I  was  sent 
for  by  Dr.  Magrath,  of  Queens,  who  was  at  that 
time  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University.  The  Vice-Chan- 
cellor  was  giving  consideration  with  his  associates  to 
some  plans  for  making  Oxford  more  attractive  to  grad- 
uate students  from  American  universities.  He  under- 
stood that  the  larger  number  of  these  American  graduate 
students  took  their  European  work  in  Germany.  His 
question  was,  "How  shall  Americans  of  the  right  sort 
be  attracted  to  Oxford?"  He  told  me  that  he  was 
applying  to  as  many  Americans  as  he  could  get  hold 


Queens  205 

of  for  suggestions  on  the  problem  from  their  several 
points  of  view.  I  had  myself  very  little  direct  know- 
ledge of  the  conditions  under  which  in  the  year  in 
question  American  students  were  sent  abroad  for  uni- 
versity work.  I  did  recall  that  in  my  own  student 
years,  which  went  back  to  1860-61,  the  Americans  whom 
I  had  met  in  Gottingen  and  in  other  German  universities 
had  emphasized  the  hospitable  facilities  extended  by  the 
German  university  authorities  to  foreign  students.  The 
matriculation  requirements  were  moderate  and  students 
were  permitted  to  take  special  courses  very  much  as 
they  found  convenient.  I  was  not  myself  familiar  with 
the  conditions,  or  with  all  the  conditions,  of  matriculation 
for  Oxford  colleges,  or  as  to  the  facilities  that  might  be 
extended  for  university  work  for  students  who  did  not 
want  to  take  college  courses.  I  had  had  the  impression, 
however,  dating  back  possibly  to  my  reading  of  Verdant 
Green,  that  the  matriculation  examinations  included  cer- 
tain ecclesiastical  requirements,  such,  for  instance,  as  a 
knowledge  of  the  "Seven  Churches  of  Asia,"  etc.  My 
word  to  Dr.  Magrath  was  a  confession  that  I  had  no  ex- 
pert knowledge  on  the  subject-matter,  but  that  Americans 
generally  wanted  to  be  permitted  to  do  things  in  their 
own  way,  and  that  the  more  it  might  be  found  practicable 
to  meet  this  general  desire,  the  more  Americans  would 
be  tempted  to  take  work  in  Oxford  and  in  Cambridge. 
This  conversation  was  some  years  in  advance  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Rhodes  scholarships.  It  is  my  understand- 
ing from  talking  with  the  Rhodes  students  from  America 
that  they  have  found,  or  that  the  most  of  them  have 
found,  excellent  opportunities  for  study  of  the  right  kind, 
and  that  the  reports  spread  by  them  after  their  return 
to  the  States  have  had  the  result  of  attracting  from  year 
to  year  a  larger  number  of  Americans  to  Oxford.  It  is 
probable  that  Oxford  is  better  known  to  the  outer  world, 


206  Oxford 

particularly  to  Americans,  than  is  the  sister  university. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  why  unless  it  be  that  English 
writers  in  referring  to  English  university  work  are  more 
apt  to  use  Oxford  as  a  text  than  Cambridge. 

All  Souls.  The  circle  of  students  who  make  up  the 
community  of  All  Souls  has  been  described,  and  with 
justice,  as  constituting  the  pleasantest  club  in  Great 
Britain.  My  earliest  host  in  the  All  Souls  circle  was  the 
stalwart  historian,  Charles  W.  C.  Oman,  and  I  owe  to 
Oman  acknowledgments  for  a  long  series  of  annual  hos- 
pitalities. My  historical  friend  comes,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  from  the  Orkney  Islands.  He  recalls  in  his  own 
person  the  Norse  type —  a  stature  of  over  six  feet,  a  fresh 
complexion,  blue  eyes,  hair  with  the  curl  to  it  that 
indicates  sturdy  vitality,  and  with  an  energy  that  some- 
times becomes  an  aggressiveness  of  manner  but  that 
cannot  conceal  the  real  sweetness  of  nature  of  the  man. 
Professor  Oman  is  classed  as  an  historian  and  his  historical 
work  covers  various  fields  of  research.  He  is  also,  how- 
ever, an  authority  on  military  science,  on  numismatics, 
and  I  do  not  know  how  many  things  beyond.  In  later 
years,  he  has  had  associated  with  him  in  All  Souls  and 
in  his  military  interests  my  good  friend  Spencer  Wilkin- 
son. If  I  remember  rightly,  Wilkinson  first  came  to  the 
front  as  a  military  critic  in  his  analysis  of  the  campaigns 
of  the  Boer  War,  but  he  has  for  years  been  accepted  as  the 
best  authority  in  Great  Britain  on  the  operations  of  war, 
and  I  believe  that  the  professorship  of  military  history 
was  created  in  Oxford  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  Wil- 
kinson to  continue  his  researches  and  to  put  into  shape 
conclusions  that  should  prove  of  service  not  only  to  his 
students  but  to  the  whole  country. 

At  the  time  when  Wilkinson  began  his  work  as  profes- 
sor of  military  history,  England  had  not  yet  realized, 
notwithstanding  the  predictions  and  the  earnestly  re- 


Queens  207 

peated  counsel  of  Lord  Roberts  and  others,  how  urgent 
the  need  would  be  not  only  for  students  in  Oxford,  but 
for  citizens  throughout  the  entire  realm,  to  secure  full 
knowledge  of  military  conditions.  It  is  undoubtedly 
true  that  the  teachings  of  men  like  Oman,  and  Wilkinson 
have  proved  of  essential  service  in  helping  Great  Britain 
under  the  stress  of  war  to  organize  measures  of  national 
defence. 

As  a  guest  of  All  Souls,  I  had  the  honour  of  being  rein- 
troduced  from  year  to  year  to  the  great  jurist,  Sir  William 
Anson,  who  for  many  years  presided  over  the  college  as 
Warden.  The  Warden  possessed  to  the  full  the  reserve 
which  characterizes  the  English  gentleman,  but  he  was 
very  much  of  a  gentleman,  and  I  found  myself  as  the 
years  went  on  coming  into  closer  personal  relations  with 
him  and  holding  him  in  increasing  regard.  The  last  time 
that  I  saw  Sir  William,  he  was  good  enough  to  carry  me 
off  after  the  hall  dinner  (he  disliked  smoke  and  evidently 
preferred  quiet  intercourse  to  the  hubbub  of  the  larger 
common  room)  to  the  study  in  his  own  house,  where  I 
had  the  privilege  of  an  hour  or  more  of  personal  talk.  I 
found  myself  impressed  with  his  large-minded  patriotism 
and  his  readiness  to  give  due  consideration  to  the  views 
of  his  political  opponents.  Anson  was  very  much  of  a 
conservative,  one  might  perhaps  say  a  Tory,  but  he  was 
a  large  enough  man  to  realize,  as  England  is  realizing  in 
this  war  of  1915,  that  all  phases  of  patriotism  and  all 
points  of  view  are  needed  for  the  service  of  the  state. 
Among  other  scholars  on  the  All  Souls  staff,  I  may  recall 
my  friend  Robertson,  whose  historical  researches,  im- 
portant as  they  are,  have,  according  to  rumour,  not  so 
far  absorbed  him  as  to  prevent  him  from  securing  under 
a  nom  de  plume  success  in  another  division  of  literature. 

The  historical  circle  in  the  college  secured  an  impor- 
tant addition  some  years  back  in  the  election  on  the  foun- 


2o8  Oxford 

dation  of  Professor  Firth,  the  scholarly  Yorkshireman 
whose  name  is  known  throughout  the  British  Empire  and 
the  world  as  the  special  authority  on  the  Cromwellian 
period.  With  the  name  of  Firth  must  be  associated  that 
of  my  good  friend  H.  W.  C.  Davis,  who  has  divided  his 
responsibilities  between  Balliol  and  All  Souls,  and  whose 
capable  work  as  a  scholar,  and  clear-headed  practical 
service  as  an  executive,  are  bringing  to  him  from  year  to 
year  increasing  repute. 

I  have  had  the  opportunity  more  than  once  of  looking 
over  in  the  All  Souls  common  room  the  famous  betting 
book,  the  entries  in  which  go  back  to  the  eighteenth 
century.  I  do  not  know  that  the  scholars  of  All  Souls 
have  more  of  the  gambling  instinct  than  is  possessed  by 
those  of  the  other  colleges,  but  this  record  shows  that  the 
questions  that  arise  from  week  to  week  in  the  common 
room  have  for  more  than  a  century  given  occasion  for 
bets.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  the  bets  have  from  the  earlier 
years  been  increasingly  modest  in  amount,  just  sufficient 
to  emphasize  or  to  back  up  the  certainty  with  which  the 
opinion  has  been  held. 

I  remember  striking  an  entry  made  in  June,  1815,  a 
few  days  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo.  A.  wagered  B. 
that  Napoleon  (whose  whereabouts  was  for  some  time 
unknown)  had  gone  to  join  the  army  of  the  Loire,  an 
army  which  proved  to  be  but  a  mythical  body. 

B.  is  not  content  to  risk  a  guinea  to  contravert  A.'s 
guess,  but  puts  down  another  guinea  in  support  of  the 
opinion  that  Napoleon  has  gone  to  surrender  himself  to 
the  English.  A  week  later,  the  two  bets  are  marked 
settled,  with  the  news  of  the  arrival  of  Napoleon  on  the 
Bellerophon. 

I  was  interested  in  another  entry  in  1854,  m  which  A. 
records  an  opinion  to  the  value  of  five  shillings,  to  the 
effect  that  within  ten  days'  time  they  will  hear  that  the 


Christ  Church  and  Frederick  York  Powell    209 

British  had  been  assaulted  in  their  position  and  had  been 
roughly  handled.  Within  the  ten  days  comes  the  news 
of  the  battle  of  Inkerman.  The  Russians  had,  under 
the  cover  of  fog,  risked  an  assault  on  the  British  lines 
which  would  have  proved  very  serious  for  an  army  that 
was  not  made  up  of  as  tough  fighting  material.  The  fog 
prevented,  for  a  time  at  least,  any  leadership  of  the  troops, 
but  the  men  managed  in  their  own  way  to  fight  the  Rus- 
sians back  from  the  plateau  to  "where  they  belonged." 

I  had  the  annoyance  of  causing  one  of  my  hosts  the 
loss  of  five  shillings  or  two  shillings  and  six  pence  on  a  bet 
that  turned  upon  an  American  subject.  A.  had  wagered 
B.  that  the  author  of  Moby  Dick  and  the  author  of  Kaloo- 
lah  were  the  same  person.  I  put  the  question,  in  looking 
at  this  entry,  whether  a  guest  had  the  right  to  give  infor- 
mation in  regard  to  such  an  issue.  "Certainly,"  said  my 
host,  "if  he  knows  anything  about  it,"  and  he  called  to 
his  antagonist  from  across  the  room:  "Here,  Putnam 
says  that  he  knows  about  this  author  of  mine."  Putnam 
was  obliged  to  take  the  ground  that  there  were  two  authors 
to  be  considered,  Herman  Melville  and  W.  S.  Mayo. 
The  Putnam  firm  had  been  publishers  for  both  and  my 
word  was,  therefore,  accepted  as  authoritative. 

Christ  Church  and  Frederick  York  Powell.  One  of  my 
earliest  friends  in  Oxford  was  Frederick  York  Powell, 
who  was  for  many  years  Senior  Scholar  of  Christ  Church 
and  who,  at  the  time  of  his  death  in  1906,  held  in  the  Uni- 
versity the  position  of  Regius  Professor  of  History.  I 
first  came  into  relations  with  him  in  connection  with  a 
series  of  volumes  on  "  English  History  as  Recorded  by  Con- 
temporary Writers"  that  Powell  had  undertaken  to  edit 
and  which  was  to  be  published  in  London  by  Nutt  and 
in  New  York  by  Putnam.  I  say  "undertaken  to  edit" 
because  as  a  fact  Powell's  work  as  editor  did  not  go  much 
further  than  the  planning  of  the  volumes  and  a  certain 
14 


210  Oxford 

supervision  of  the  text.  It  proved  to  be  so  difficult  to 
secure  from  the  so-called  editor  within  any  reasonable 
time  the  attention  required  for  the  editorial  work,  that 
the  final  preparation  of  the  material  for  the  press  had  to 
be  confided  to  other  hands. 

Powell  was  a  real  scholar,  possessing  an  exceptional 
range  of  knowledge,  and  his  keen  perceptions  and  fertile 
imagination  rendered  his  counsel  and  suggestions  in 
scholarly  matters,  and  particularly  in  historical  under- 
takings, always  interesting  and  often  very  valuable.  If 
another  worker,  friend,  acquaintance,  or  even  stranger, 
had  a  troublesome  task  on  hand,  Powell  was  unselfishly 
ready  to  place  at  his  disposal  a  wealth  of  scholarly  infor- 
mation. The  instant,  however,  he  had  himself  entered 
into  an  engagement  or  accepted  any  responsibility,  the 
task  became  irksome  and  the  subject  distasteful.  Then 
came  postponements,  delays,  excuses.  At  the  very  time 
when  he  was  explaining  to  an  impatient  publisher  the 
impossibility  of  completing  a  commission  for  which  a 
payment  was  awaiting  him,  he  would  be  giving  hours  of 
unpaid-for  co-operation  to  some  undertaking  for  which 
he  had  no  responsibility  whatsoever. 

Powell  was  English  by  birth  and  education,  but  his 
father  had  been  a  Welshman  and  he  appeared  to  have  in- 
herited a  full  measure  of  what  we  think  of  as  Celtic  quali- 
ties, including  a  great  capacity  for  generosity  and  for 
free-handed  service  and  a  keen  aversion  to  the  fulfilment 
of  an  obligation.  A  promise  meant  a  bond,  and  for  a  free- 
born  Celt  a  bond  was  an  oppression,  an  indignity,  some- 
thing to  be  rebelled  against. 

The  historical  series  did  not  prove  successful  from  a 
business  point  of  view,  but  it  rendered  to  the  American 
publisher  the  great  service  of  bringing  him  into  friendly 
relations  with  a  lovable  and  interesting  character  whom 
I  came  to  hold  in  affectionate  regard.  While  Powell  was 


Christ  Church  and  Frederick  York  Powell    211 

not  only  critical  but  fiercely  denunciatory  of  my  own 
opinions  and  general  method  of  thought,  he  took  a  personal 
liking  to  me  and  I  received  a  standing  invitation  to  occupy, 
whenever  I  might  be  free  to  visit  Oxford,  the  spare  room 
in  the  pleasant  quarters  in  Christ  Church  where  for  many 
years  Powell  carried  on  his  work  under  the  old-fashioned 
appellation  of  "Senior  Scholar." 

Undeterred  by  my  first  experience  of  Powell's  editorial 
methods,  I  had  a  year  or  two  later  persuaded  him  to 
enter  into  an  agreement  for  the  preparation  of  a  life 
of  Alfred  the  Great,  on  whose  period  Powell  was  an 
authority.  This  agreement  was  in  force,  that  is  to 
say,  in  existence,  for  no  less  than  twelve  years,  and  in 
returning  to  Oxford  from  May  to  May,  the  publisher 
naturally  demanded  a  report  of  progress.  "What!  You 
troublesome  Yankee!  You  persistent,  pestiferous,  per- 
nicky,  publishing  Putnam!  You  here  again?  Why!  we 
got  rid  of  you  only  yesterday.  The  Alfred?  Well, 
there's  not  much  to  say  about  that  book !  I  really  believe 
I  might  manage  to  finish  it  in  two  long  vacations,  but  I 
cannot  begin  it  this  year.  I  promised  to  help  B.  with 
some  Clarendon  Press  work  and  I  am  thinking  of  a  trip 
to  Iceland  with  Vigfusson  and — there  are  other  things  in 
the  way,"  etc. 

There  were  always  "things  in  the  way"  with  work  that 
was  under  contract.  The  book  had  been  planned  by  me 
with  reference  to  the  commemoration  of  the  millenary 
of  Alfred's  birth,  but  the  market  was  promptly  "occu- 
pied" with  biographies  prepared  by  other  winters  who, 
if  less  authoritative  in  knowledge,  had  a  better  realization 
of  publishing  requirements.  At  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
year,  I  brought  the  contract  to  Christ  Church  and  made 
a  solemn  holocaust  of  it  over  the  stiKfy  fire.  "Now," 
said  my  Celt,  with  one  of  his  cheery  and  irresistible  laughs, 
"there  is  no  longer  anything  to  make  trouble  between 


212  Oxford 

friends.  I  may  even  write  for  you  a  life  of  Alfred";  but 
he  never  did. 

With  all  his  learning  and  industry,  Powell  never  pro- 
duced any  original  work  of  importance,  and  it  is  only  in 
the  minds  of  his  students  and  intimates  that  the  memory 
will  be  preserved  of  the  erudition,  the  keen  insight,  the 
warm  sense  of  humour,  and  the  wide  and  sympathetic 
range  of  intellectual  interests  possessed  by  this  excep- 
tionally perverse  and  impracticable  man.  When  I  was 
sojourning  with  Powell,  I  attemped  from  time  to  time  to 
help  his  faithful  scout  to  keep  him  up  to  his  engagements 
for  the  day.  I  would  remind  him  of  a  committee  meeting 
or  the  promise  he  had  given  for  a  lunch  or  a  reception. 
"Oh,  bother  the  people,"  he  would  exclaim,  "I'll  take  a 
walk  with  you  instead.  Even  a  Yankee  is  better  than 
a  reception." 

Powell's  name  was  associated  with  one  noteworthy 
undertaking  of  scholarship  that  really  was  brought  to 
completion.  He  had  from  an  early  time  interested 
himself  in  Scandinavian  literature  and  had  become  an 
authority  on  the  Sagas  of  Norway  and  Iceland.  He  was 
instrumental  in  having  a  place  made  in  Oxford  for  the  Ice- 
landic scholar,  Vigfusson,  and,  in  co-operation  with  Vig- 
fusson,  he  produced  the  Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,  a  work  of 
distinctive  importance  and  value.  The  persistency  and 
patience  of  the  Icelander,  for  whom  Powell  had  an  affec- 
tionate regard,  succeeded  in  securing  from  his  brilliant 
and  erratic  coadjutor  the  concentrated  attention  re- 
quired during  years  of  arduous  labour  to  bring  the  great 
task  to  completion. 

As  a  lecturer,  Powell  was  nervous  and  ineffective.  He 
apparently  had  difficulty,  when  on  his  feet,  in  shaping  into 
the  proper  phrases  the  thoughts  which  crowded  his  active 
brain.  He  was  at  his  best  in  talking  across  his  study 
table  to  a  small  group  of  seminar  students.  He  was  as 


Christ  Church  and  Frederick  York  Powell    213 

ready  and  as  interested  in  pouring  forth  information  for 
the  benefit  of  a  couple  of  youngsters,  or  even  of  a  single 
hearer,  as  for  a  class.  He  was  absolutely  regardless  of 
personal  prestige  or  even  of  the  natural  expectations  and 
responsibilities  attaching  to  his  post  as  professor.  "Why 
should  I  care  what  people  think?"  was  his  word.  I  be- 
lieve he  was  absolutely  free  from  vanity,  and  it  never 
would  have  occurred  to  him  to  save  up  for  an  important 
audience  a  witty  utterance  or  a  brilliant  thought. 

I  recall  an  hour  in  Powell's  study  when  over  a  midnight 
pipe  he  gave  to  two  hearers  the  story  of  a  voyage  of  a 
Viking  ship.  He  described  the  building  and  the  equip- 
ment, the  character  and  the  manner  of  the  collection  and 
arrangement  of  the  stores,  the  weapons  and  the  armour. 
He  told  us  how  the  warriors  were  brought  together,  and 
he  pictured  the  parting  from  the  wives,  the  children,  and 
the  old  folks.  As  the  ship  started  out  from  the  inland 
fiord  on  her  way  to  some  unfortunate  town  on  the  coast 
of  France,  the  narrative  fell  (quite  unconsciously,  I  be- 
lieve) into  the  first  person.  The  don  of  Christchurch 
was  transformed  into  a  pirate  chief  and  he  looked  the 
part.  His  fine  stature,  blue  eyes,  curly  hair  (typical  of 
a  Viking's  vitality),  ruddy  complexion,  deep  voice,  and 
cheery  laugh,  all  fitted  well  into  the  r61e.  The  pirate 
carried  his  crew  triumphantly  to  the  mouth  of  the  Seine, 
captured  and  sacked  the  unfortunate  settlement,  buried 
his  dead,  killed  (for  their  own  sake)  those  of  the  wounded 
who  could  not  recover,  and  sailed  back  in  triumph  to  the 
home  fiord.  There,  after  a  glorious  welcome,  the  chief 
apportioned  with  strict  impartiality  the  spoils  and  the 
few  captives  for  whom  space  had  been  found.  I  came 
away  well  after  midnight  feeling  that  I  had  listened  to  a 
real  Saga  told  as  it  were,  by  the  warrior  himself. 

Norseman,  scholar,  gentleman,  brilliant  wit,  and  genius, 
perverse,  inconsequent,  a  man  to  be  valued  for  his  per- 


214  Oxford 

sonality  rather  than  for  his  achievements,  York  Powell 
will  be  known  only  by  those  with  whom  he  had  to  do, 
but  by  those  he  can  never  be  forgotten.  He  had  impressed 
upon  them  his  exceptional  individuality  and  he  had  won 
their  lasting  affection. 

New  College.  My  earlier  association  with  New  College 
was  through  that  distinguished  scholar  and  fine-natured 
man  Dr.  Hastings  Rashdall,  whom  I  had  first  come  to 
know  in  Ballio'l.  His  History  of  European  Universities  is 
a  work  that  belongs  to  the  world's  literature.  It  was  a 
decided  loss  to  Balliol  when  with  the  appointment  for 
certain  university  work,  Rashdall  found  it  necessary  to 
transfer  himself  to  New  College,  but  this  is  one  of  the 
losses  that  a  college  like  Balliol,  producing  men  who  are 
wanted  for  special  work  elsewhere,  must  from  time  to 
time  accept.  It  had  a  similar  loss  a  year  or  two  back  in 
the  transfer  to  Magdalen,  as  a  result  of  his  appointment  as 
Professor  of  Philosophy,  of  so  typical  a  Balliol  don  as 
J.  A.  Smith. 

I  received  hospitality  from  year  to  year  in  New  College 
from  the  courteous  and  genial  dean,  Matheson,  and  I  came 
to  know  in  the  college — I  think  first  as  an  undergraduate — • 
one  of  the  younger  men  who  has  since  come  to  the  front 
as  belonging  to  the  first  group  of  English  historians, 
H.  A.  L.  Fisher.  I  recall  a  tennis  contest;  I  think  it  was 
while  Fisher  was  still  an  undergraduate,  in  which  Logan 
Pearsall-Smith,  an  American  studying  in  Balliol,  and 
myself  challenged  A.  L.  Smith,  a  history  don  of  Balliol, 
and  Fisher,  of  New,  to  an  international  match.  Pearsall- 
Smith  and  myself  were  fortunate  enough  to  pull  the  match 
off,  although  it  was  fought  so  sharply  that  before  the 
games  were  completed  A.  L.  Smith  had  used  up  his  tennis 
shoes  completely  and  was  doing  his  last  fighting  in  his 
stockinged  feet.  I  imagine  that  there  must  have  been 
later  in  the  day  a  wifely  reprimand  for  the  "footless" 


Married  Fellows.     Congregation       215 

don.  Pearsall-Smith  threatened,  in  the  joy  of  our  victory, 
to  put  the  American  flag  up  over  the  dome  of  RadclifTe, 
but  the  plan  was  never  carried  out.  I  came  into  relations 
later  with  Fisher  after  the  death  of  my  good  friend,  his 
brother-in-law,  Professor  Maitland.  Fisher  had  charge 
of  Maitland's  papers,  and  it  was  under  his  editorial  super- 
vision that  Maitland's  latest  volumes  were  produced  by 
the  Cambridge  Press  in  England  and  by  G.  P.  Putnam's 
Sons  in  New  York.  I  do  not  know  how  far  my  energetic 
young  friend  from  New  may  have  kept  up  his  tennis,  but 
his  reputation  as  an  historical  scholar  has  steadily  widened, 
and  at  this  time  of  writing,  he  is  winning  fresh  prestige 
for  himself  and  for  his  old-time  colleges,  Balliol  and  New, 
as  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Sheffield. 

Married  Fellows.  Congregation.  Kriegs-Spiel.  At  the 
time  of  my  first  visits  to  Oxford  in  the  seventies,  the 
married  fellow  was  still  the  exception.  The  high  table 
and  the  common  room  had  during  the  term  a  full  attend- 
ance of  the  fellows,  and  there  was  little  to  divert  the  in- 
terest of  these  dons  from  the  work  and  the  interests  of 
their  college.  In  later  years,  there  has  been  a  change 
which,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  college,  has  an  element 
of  sadness.  The  high  table,  excepting  on  function  days, 
is  apt  to  be  very  nearly  deserted.  I  have  had  a  friend 
say  to  me  with  emphasis:  "Putnam,  you  must  dine  with 
me  tonight,  otherwise  I  shall  be  all  alone  at  the  high 
table."  A  large  portion  of  the  dons  are  now  to  be  found 
in  pleasant  cottages  in  "Donopolis"  in  the  north  end  of 
Oxford,  playing  tennis  with  their  youngsters,  or  perhaps 
the  younger  man  whom  one  looks  up,  after  inquiring  in 
vain  in  the  college  quad,  will  be  encountered  in  the  park 
with  the  baby  in  the  "push  buggy."  I  believe  I  am  myself 
responsible  for  the  introduction  into  Oxford  of  this  term 
as  an  equivalent  for  the  perambulator  or  "pram."  In 
reply  to  an  inquiry  of  some  Oxford  lady  as  to  the  American 


216  Oxford 

name  for  the  article,  I  had  said  rather  hurriedly  (I  really 
could  not  recall  for  the  moment  the  proper  term),  "push 
buggy."  A  year  or  two  later,  I  found  that  this  term  had 
come  into  quite  general  use  in  Oxford,  and  it  was  quoted 
to  me  with  the  explanation  "you  will  realize,  Mr.  Putnam, 
that  this  is  an  Americanism."  I  felt  somewhat  contrite, 
but  the  mischief  was  done. 

I  recall  a  famous  debate  twenty  odd  years  ago  at 
the  Union,  where  there  has,  through  the  centuries,  been 
very  good  debating  and  where  the  future  statesmen  of 
England  secure  their  first  training  in  thinking  on  their 
feet,  on  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not  the  marriage  of 
fellows  had  been  a  detriment  to  the  University.  By  a 
very  close  vote  of  two  or  three  only  in  a  large  house  the 
decision  was  given  in  favour  of  the  wives.  I  remember 
telling  the  lady  with  whom  I  was  dining  that  evening 
that  she  had  narrowly  escaped  being  packed  out  of  Oxford 
with  bag,  baggage,  and  children,  leaving  her  don  to  return 
to  the  college  free  from  any  interests  or  temptations  that 
would  divert  him  from  college  duties. 

I  think  it  was  some  time  in  the  nineties  that  I  was  given 
the  privilege  (probably  contrary  to  all  precedents  and 
regulations)  of  being  present  at  a  meeting  of  Convocation, 
the  assembly  of  fellows  which  is  charged  with  the  adjust- 
ment of  university  business.  For  business  of  a  certain 
character,  it  becomes  necessary  under  the  old-time  regu- 
lations to  call  a  meeting  of  Convocation  which  includes 
non-resident  as  well  as  resident  members  of  the  Univer- 
sity. The  routine  matters  are  passed  upon  by  Congrega- 
tion, made  up  of  the  fellows  in  residence.  The  question 
under  discussion  during  the  hour  of  my  presence  had  to 
do  with  the  disposition  to  be  made  of  certain  statues  of 
very  ancient  date,  which  at  that  time  adorned  (more  or 
less)  the  roof  of  St.  Mary's  Cathedral  church.  These 
statues  could  be  seen  but  dimly  from  the  pavement  below, 


Kriegs-Spiel  217 

but  according  to  legend  they  represented  art  work  which 
was  both  ancient  and  important.  Their  supports  had 
become  weakened  through  the  action  of  the  weather  and 
one  of  the  group  (there  may  have  been  a  dozen  or  more  in 
all)  had  actually  fallen  from  the  roof  of  the  church  onto 
the  sidewalk  of  the  High.  It  was  rumoured  that  it  had 
just  missed  one  of  the  aldermen  of  the  city.  At  all  events, 
a  sharp  protest  came  from  the  mayor  and  council,  with 
the  word  that  the  University  would  be  held  responsible 
for  any  injury  that  might  be  caused  to  life,  limb,  or  property 
on  account  of  the  decrepit  condition  of  these  statues  on 
the  university  church.  It  was  the  impression  of  the  first 
speakers  that  however  saintly  were  the  lives  that  had 
been  commemorated,  the  statues  had  fulfilled  their  pur- 
pose and  that  as  works  of  art  they  were  not  very  important. 
It  would,  it  seemed,  be  wisest  to  take  them  down  and 
put  them  in  a  place  of  safety.  William  Morris,  the  poet, 
made  an  impassioned  protest  against  any  such  utilitarian 
course  of  action.  "The  statues,"  said  Morris,  "connect 
us  with  the  past;  they  represent  for  us  the  earliest  tradi- 
tions of  the  University.  Their  proper  position  is  where 
they  had  originally  been  placed,  watching  over  the  church 
and  through  the  church  caring  for  the  fortunes  of  the 
University."  Morris  made  light  of  the  peril  to  citizens 
or  to  aldermen.  He  contended  that  rather  than  to  treat 
'iconoclastically  these  precious  monuments,  representa- 
tions of  its  old-time  art  and  ancient  traditions,  Oxford 
could  spare  one  or  two  aldermen,  or  even  if  chance  would 
have  it,  the  mayor  himself.  Morris  was,  however,  voted 
down  and  within  the  next  week  or  two  the  statues  were 
lowered  from  the  roof  of  the  church  to  the  inner  courtyard. 
When  the  precious  monuments  were  placed  against  the 
church  where  they  were  in  full  view,  it  was  difficult  to 
associate  them  with  ancient  art  or  with  art  of  any  kind 
whatever.  They  were  weather-beaten  torsos,  with  hardly 


218  Oxford 

anything  left  either  of  feature  or  of  limb.  It  took  as 
much  imagination  as  the  Marchioness  of  Dickens  gave 
to  her  water  and  lemon  peel  to  make  believe  it  was  punch, 
to  recall  through  these  statues  the  early  history  of  Oxford 
University. 

One  of  the  institutions  in  Oxford  which  has  during 
these  years  of  war  come  again  to  attention  was  the  Kriegs- 
Spiel  Club,  organized  some  twenty  years  or  more  back 
by  my  friend  Oman.  Oman  had  succeeded  in  instilling 
some  of  his  own  military  interests  into  a  sufficient  group 
of  dons  to  enable  the  game  to  be  played  with  all  the  pre- 
cision of  the  German  rules.  I  had  been  told  in  Berlin 
that  proficiency  in  Kriegs-Spiel  was  an  essential  require- 
ment for  promotion  on  the  German  staff.  I  attended 
one  meeting  of  the  club,  serving  as  an  aid  to  Oman,  who 
had  shaped  the  problem  and  who  was  acting  as  umpire. 
According  to  the  routine,  the  contestants  were  carrying 
on  the  two  sides  of  their  campaign  in  different  rooms,  and 
I  took  from  room  to  room  the  reports  of  the  movements 
decided  upon.  Each  party  had  the  same  map  and  his 
half  of  the  problem.  One  force,  reported  as  the  smaller, 
was  to  defend  Oxford,  for  a  term  of  forty-eight  hours,  and 
during  that  term  to  maintain  open  the  road  of  connection 
with  London.  If  the  besieging  force,  however,  should 
succeed  within  the  forty-eight  hours  in  entering  the  city, 
or  in  placing  itself  securely  across  the  line  of  connection. 
to  London,  victory  rested  with  the  besiegers.  The  forty- 
eight  hours  of  the  imaginary  campaign  were  for  the  pur- 
poses of  the  game  consolidated  into  two  hours  of  actual 
time.  The  assailant  of  Oxford  was  an  elderly  professor 
of  theology,  and  a  more  blood-thirsty  theologian  I  never 
met.  He  was  perfectly  ready  to  sacrifice  any  number  of 
his  troops  for  the  smallest  gain,  real  or  imaginary.  The 
defendant  was  a  canny  young  historian  who  watched  not 
only  the  position,  but  the  resources  that  he  had  available 


Kriegs-Spiel  219 

for  its  defence.  I  remember  taking  to  the  commander  of 
the  besieging  force  the  report  that  "at  this  point 
you  are  held  up  under  an  open  flank  fire  from  protected 
guns,  and  these  troops  of  yours  will  be  ruled  off  as  dead." 
"God  bless  my  soul,"  said  the  professor;  and  then,  after 
a  moment's  hesitancy,  "do  you  not  think,  Major,  that 
it  might  be  useful  if  I  sacrificed  a  brigade  at  this  point? 
Would  not  the  enemy  gather  in  that  way  an  exaggerated 
impression  of  my  attacking  force  ?  "  I  declined  to  give  him 
advice  on  the  matter,  and  in  fact,  being  merely  a  messenger, 
I  had  no  business  to  give  any  counsel  at  all.  The  pro- 
fessor moved  forward  his  brigade  and  the  umpire  promptly 
pronounced  it  dead.  At  the  end  of  two  hours,  which 
covered  the  forty-eight  hours  allotted  to  the  campaign, 
the  umpire  decided  that,  while  the  blood-thirsty  theolo- 
gian had  succeeded  in  getting  his  troops  up  to  the  line  of 
the  London  pike,  by  the  time  they  were  planted  on  the 
road,  there  were  practically  no  men  left,  and  the  victory 
was,  therefore,  adjudged  to  the  canny  young  historian 
who  had  defended  Oxford. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  at  this  time  (July,  1915)  my 
historical  friend  is  using  his  good  judgment  and  patriotism 
for  service  in  a  real  campaign.  I  may  only  wish  him 
Godspeed  and  a  safe  outcome. 


CHAPTER  IX 
Cambridge 

Pembroke.  I  was  introduced  to  Pembroke  College 
some  time  in  the  eighties  as  the  guest  of  Leonard  Whibley. 
Whibley  unites  the  qualifications  of  fine  scholarship, 
particularly  in  Greek  subjects,  with  those  of  a  clear- 
headed man  of  business.  He  had  some  years'  experience 
as  a  publisher,  which  gave  special  value  to  his  service 
later,  as  one  of  the  Syndics  of  the  University  Press. 
Through  Whibley,  I  came  to  know  R.  A.  Neil  and  Edward 
G.  Browne,  with  whom  my  relations  became  intimate, 
Prior,  Hadley  (the  present  Master),  and  the  other  mem- 
bers of  an  attractive  and  evidently  effective  group  of 
scholars.  Neil  had  an  extra  set  of  rooms  which  he  placed 
at  my  disposal  and  which  I  had  the  privilege  of  occupying 
during  annual  visits  extending  over  a  long  series  of  years; 
and  I  came  to  be  accepted  as  a  kind  of  honorary  member 
of  the  combination  room. 

Neil's  spare  rooms  had  for  a  number  of  years  been  the 
home  of  the  astronomer  Adams ;  and  the  scrapbooks  con- 
taining his  calculations  were  still  on  the  shelves  of  the 
study.  I  found  myself  once  at  least  dreaming  that  I  had 
discovered  Neptune  and  that  I  was  pointing  it  out  to  the 
astronomer-royal.  I  can  even  recall  a  quizzical  expression 
on  the  face  of  the  planet  as  if  he  were  saying,  "There  is  no 
help  for  it;  I  am  discovered  at  last." 

220 


Pembroke  221 

My  host  Neil  was  one  of  the  recognized  scholars  of  the 
University  and  was  an  authority  on  Sanscrit.  The  hours 
available  for  his  own  studies  were,  however,  seriously 
curtailed  by  his  conscientious  and  sympathetic  devotion 
to  his  students  and  by  the  attention  he  felt  called  upon 
to  give  (he  was  through  the  greater  part  of  these  years 
senior  tutor)  to  the  details  of  the  administration  of  the 
college.  In  an  earlier  chapter,  I  have  expressed  my  sur- 
prise that  the  work  of  an  English  college  should  not 
be  so  regulated  as  to  leave  some  assured  time  for  the  re- 
search work  of  men  whose  scholarly  labours  would  be 
valuable  for  the  college  and  for  the  world  at  large.  I 
could  not  find  that  there  was  during  the  weeks  of  term 
any  "close  time"  for  the  dons.  My  host  could  not  be 
persuaded  "to  sport  his  oak,"  even  when  he  was  playing 
chess  with  me.  I  would  find  him  giving  evening  hours, 
that  ought  to  have  been  his  own  for  study  or  for  rest,  to 
the  checking  of  exeats  or  buttery  bills — work  that  could, 
as  far  as  I  was  able  to  judge,  have  been  adequately  cared 
for  by  a  forty-shilling-a-week  clerk. 

"It  is  important,  Putnam,"  Neil  would  explain,  "that 
I  should  keep  track  of  the  expenditures  of  the  young  men." 
Neil  was  a  North  Briton  and  his  Highland  accent  gave  to 
his  speech  a  quaintness  of  tone  and  a  warmth  of  colour 
that  I  found  fascinating.  He  had  an  exceptionally  fine 
and  delicate  nature,  and  he  was  to  me  and  to  others  of  his 
circle  a  loyal  and  sympathetic  friend.  In  politics,  both 
national  and  university,  Neil  was  a  strong  liberal.  He  was, 
for  instance,  a  cordial  supporter  of  higher  education  for 
women,  with  the  logical  conclusion  that  a  woman  who 
did  the  necessary  work  ought  to  secure  the  evidence  of  the 
same  in  the  shape  of  a  university  degree.  But  he  was 
conservative  enough  in  regard  to  details  to  insist  upon 
retaining  in  the  Pembroke  court  the  foot-breaking 
flint  pebble  walks  which  in  other  colleges  had  been  re- 


222  Cambridge 

placed  by  smooth  flags.  Neil  died  young,  a  great  loss 
to  Pembroke,  to  Cambridge,  and  to  a  circle  of  loving 
friends. 

I  recall  a  June  evening  when  we  had  at  the  high  table, 
in  addition  to  the  full  group  of  resident  fellows,  some 
outsiders,  mainly  youngsters,  who  had  been  out  of  college 
and  had  returned  for  a  visit.  The  conversation  turned  on 
the  political  leaders  of  the  day,  and  someone  risked  the 
prophecy  that  Joseph  Chamberlain,  at  that  time  Secretary 
for  the  Colonies,  was  the  coming  man,  and  that  he  would 
in  the  near  future  become  the  head  of  her  Majesty's 
Government.  It  was  my  practice  to  avoid  taking  part 
in  an  English  political  conversation  unless  called  upon 
for  an  opinion.  But  Neil,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the 
table,  called  across  to  me:  "What  do  you  Americans 
think  of  Joe  Chamberlain?  You  must  know  something 
about  him.  He  has  been  on  your  side  more  than  once 
and  has  married  an  American  woman."  I  replied  that  I 
would  not  undertake  to  speak  for  Americans  as  a  whole, 
but  that  the  group  to  which  I  belonged  did  not  like  Mr. 
Chamberlain.  We  did  not  trust  him.  He  did  not  im- 
press us  as  a  gentleman  and  we  felt  that  he  had  married 
above  him  in  securing  an  Endicott  of  Massachusetts. 
" Britain,"  I  continued,  "has  often  been  ruled  with  stu- 
pidity. (Here  there  was  a  growl  of  dissent  from  some  of 
my  auditors.)  But  it  has  always  been  ruled  by  gentle- 
men; and  I  do  not  myself  believe  it  will  ever  accept 
Chamberlain  as  Prime  Minister." 

One  of  the  youngsters,  evidently  an  enthusiastfor  Cham- 
berlain, here  broke  in:  "You  Yankees  don't  like  Chamber- 
lain because  he  is  too  sharp  for  you.  You  can't  'do' 
Joe  Chamberlain."  "You  are  speaking  under  a  mis- 
apprehension," I  rejoined.  "We  Yankees  have  no  busi- 
ness with  her  Majesty's  Colonial  Secretary.  Since  1776, 
our  dealings  are  carried  on  with  the  Department  of 


Trinity  223 

Foreign  Affairs."  The  youngster  looked  puzzled,  and 
it  was  evident  that  his  history  did  not  make  cleat  to  him 
the  nature  of  the  events  of  1776.  Neil,  who  was  no  ad- 
mirer of  Chamberlain,  was  chuckling  over  the  opinion 
drawn  out  from  his  Yankee  friend,  and  it  was  my  impres- 
sion that  the  majority  of  those  present  were  in  accord 
with  my  view. 

To  Professor  Edward  G.  Browne,  I  may  venture  here 
but  a  brief  reference.  One  may  not  bring  into  print  an 
analysis  of  relations  with  a  dear  friend  who  is  living,  and 
Browne  is,  I  am  glad  to  remember,  very  much  alive. 
Browne  is  one  of  the  great  Oriental  scholars  of  England 
and  of  Europe,  and  is  accepted  as  the  special  authority 
on  Persia  and  on  the  faith  of  the  Babis.  He  has  been  the 
sturdy  defender  of  the  independence  of  Persia,  an  inde- 
pendence that  may,  I  judge,  be  seriously  menaced  what- 
ever may  be  the  results  of  the  present  war.  All  of  Browne's 
opinions  are  held  sturdily  and  are  maintained  even  with 
fierceness,  but  it  is  fair  to  remember  that  they  are  based 
upon  an  enormous  and  exceptional  knowledge.  With 
his  humour  and  aggressiveness,  he  was  the  life  of  the  rather 
sedate  Pembroke  combination  room,  and  it  was  a  personal 
loss  to  the  circle  when  Browne  joined  the  increasing  ranks 
of  married  fellows  and  established  his  home  on  the  Trump- 
ington  Road.  Those  who  have  the  privilege  of  knowing 
the  professor's  wife  are,  however,  able  to  understand  the 
irresistible  attractiveness  of  the  inducement. 

Trinity.  It  has  not  been  my  good  fortune  to  have 
many  friends  in  the  great  circle  of  Trinity  College.  I 
have  had  the  honour  of  an  introduction  to  the  Master 
and  have  been  his  guest  on  one  of  the  Sunday  gala  evenings 
at  the  great  high  table,  at  which  in  successive  years  have 
been  gathered  a  series  of  distinguished  guests. 

I  happened  to  be  in  Cambridge  (it  would  not  be  polite 
to  the  lady  to  say  how  many  years  back)  the  June  in 


224  Cambridge 

which  Miss  Ramsay,  now  Mrs.  Butler,  received  her  degree. 
The  daughter  of  a  Scotch  professor,  she  had  received 
first-class  classical  training  in  Edinburgh,  and  had  made 
a  distinctive  success  in  Oxford.  In  fact  for  the  year  in 
question,  she  was  not  only  in  the  first  class  in  classics, 
but  she  was  the  only  occupant  of  that  class.  I  recall  a 
picture  in  the  Punch  of  the  day  in  which  is  presented  a 
view  of  a  railroad  station  and  a  long  train  with  the  first 
carriage  marked  "  for  ladies  only,"  and  an  attractive  young 
person,  an  excellent  representation  of  Miss  Ramsay,  with 
her  hand  on  the  carriage  door.  The  men  who  were  con- 
cerned with  the  train  were  streaking  off  to  the  second- 
and  third-class  carriages  beyond.  A  year  or  more  after 
the  marriage,  being  again  in  Cambridge,  I  happened  to 
inquire  whether  Mrs.  Butler  was  keeping  up  her  classical 
studies.  " I  understand  she  is,"  was  the  reply,  "and  that 
she  is  now  kept  busy  in  the  preparation  of  a  crib  for  He- 
rodotus." Miss  Ramsay  had  edited  for  college  use  some 
of  the  books  of  Herodotus,  and  the  name  of  the  old  Greek 
historian  had  by  the  Trinity  students  been  applied  to  her 
first  boy.  I  hope  the  "crib"  proved  satisfactory. 

I  came  to  know  in  Trinity  a  clever  undergraduate, 
George  Macaulay  Trevelyan,  who  has  since  made  his 
name  as  an  author  and  as  a  publicist.  He  is  a  man  whose 
friendship  I  value,  and  I  may  not  venture  to  analyse 
either  his  character  or  his  work.  I  can  but  feel,  however, 
as  if  his  series  of  books  on  Garibaldi  constituted  a  prose 
epic.  It  has  hardly  been  equalled,  if  at  all  equalled,  in 
English  literature.  The  literary  style  of  George  impresses 
me  as  more  effective  than  that  of  his  great  uncle.  It  is 
always  dramatic,  but  it  is  free  from  the  wearisome  an- 
tithesis that  sometimes  mars  the  clever  portraiture  of 
Macaulay.  George  is  a  good  example  of  a  historian  who 
possesses  not  only  the  dry-as-dust  thoroughness  of  the 
German,  but  the  dramatic  literary  quality  of  the  Celt  or 


Trinity  225 

Frenchman.  He  told  me  that  he  had  been  over  every 
foot  of  ground  in  Italy  that  had  been  traversed  by  his 
hero  Garibaldi  in  his  various  campaigns,  that  which  cul- 
minated in  the  siege  of  Rome,  those  which  had  to  do  with 
the  war  of  fifty-nine  and  the  final  great  triumph  which 
resulted  in  the  capture  of  Palermo  and  the  overthrow  of 
the  kingdom  of  Sicily.  This  precision  for  detail  has, 
however,  not  been  permitted  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
shaping  of  a  narrative  that  is  as  dramatic  as  if  it  had  been 
produced  for  a  moving-picture  show. 

George  Trevelyan's  clever  wife,  a  distinguished  scholar 
and  the  daughter  of  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  permits  me 
from  summer  to  summer  to  continue  in  their  pleasant 
cottage  in  Bucks  a  contest  over  the  chessboard. 

I  should  not  leave  the  Trinity  court  without  a  refer- 
ence to  my  old-time  friend,  Dean  Cunningham,  who  has 
more  than  once  extended  to  me  pleasant  hospitality  and 
who  has  been  specially  considerate  of  the  requirements 
of  one  of  my  scholarly  daughters.  My  only  issue  with 
Cunningham  is  that  he  persists,  trained  economist  as  he 
is,  in  espousing  the  cause  of  Chamberlain  and  the  theory 
that  the  British  Empire  could  be  bound  together  by  a 
tariff  system. 

I  expressed  the  wish  at  one  time  that  the  Chamberlain 
group  might  have  come  in  for  a  lease  of  power  (which 
would  have  been  but  a  brief  lease),  if  only  for  the  purpose 
of  giving  to  Cunningham,  Ashley,  and  the  other  scientific 
advisers  of  the  party  the  opportunity  of  tackling  their 
big  problem.  To  make  a  tariff  that  should  not  interfere 
with  the  price  of  food  or  manufacturing  material  in  Great 
Britain  and  that  should  at  the  same  time  satisfy  the 
Colonists,  was  a  task  that  would,  I  believe,  have  gone 
beyond  any  ability  either  of  the  scholars  or  of  the  political 
leaders  in  the  group. 

Downing.  My  relations  with  Downing  came  through 
is 


226  Cambridge 

the  well-known  historian  Professor  F.  W.  Maitland,  one 
of  the  great  men  of  England  and  of  the  world,  whose  life 
was  cut  short  altogether  too  soon.  The  photograph  that 
I  now  have  before  me  recalls  his  fine-cut  features  and 
far-searching  eyes,  and  recalls  also,  sadly  enough,  the  lack 
of  support  of  the  cheek-bone  indicating  the  physical 
weakness  that  finally  broke  down  his  life.  Maitland  was 
one  of  the  great  scholars — and  there  are  not  too  many— 
who  was  so  imbued  with  his  scholarship  that  it  came  from 
him  as  natural  speech,  and  his  natural  speech  was  that  of 
a  man  who  possessed  literary  quality  and  dramatic  force. 
Maitland  was  able,  when  in  conversation  or  on  his  feet 
in  the  lecture  room,  so  to  present  some  scrap  of  mediaeval 
parchment  that  the  whole  transaction  chronicled  by  the 
ancient  script  came  into  life  before  his  hearers.  He  was 
able  to  make  the  dead  bones  live  and  to  recall  to  his 
students  the  actual  personalities  of  the  men  of  the  earlier 
days  whose  methods  of  life  and  of  law  he  had  chronicled. 

I  remember  an  act  of  kindness  on  his  part  (and  he  was 
always  ready  with  acts  of  kindness)  to  my  historical 
daughter  who  needed  some  counsel  in  regard  to  fourteenth- 
century  manuscripts.  It  was  the  year  before  Maitland's 
death  and  exertion  constituted  for  him  an  effort.  He  had 
his  hands  full  with  the  finishing  of  some  work  of  his  own ; 
but  a  question  of  hers  which  showed  that  she  knew  what 
she  was  working  at  so  far  interested  him  that  he  was 
satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  devoting  two  hours  with 
her  in  the  library  for  the  purpose  of  steering  her  through 
certain  sources  which  were  to  be  collated  and  considered. 
Maitland's  early  death,  due  apparently  in  large  part  to 
the  impossible  Cambridge  climate,  was  a  misfortune  to 
England  and  to  the  world. 

Maitland  possessed  not  only  an  admirable  style,  but 
a  most  charming  and  forcible  way  of  expression  on  his 
feet.  He  was  a  graceful  and  at  times  an  eloquent  speaker. 


Emmanuel  College  227 

His  speech  always  represented  full  information,  clearness 
of  arrangement,  earnestness  of  conviction,  a  lightness  of 
touch  and  sense  of  humour  which  may  perhaps  be  consid- 
ered as  exceptional  among  English  speakers.  He  was  a 
most  valuable  worker  in  Cambridge  in  the  Congregation 
of  the  University  and  in  other  circles  in  behalf  of  degrees 
for  women.  He  felt  keenly  the  injustice  of  giving  to  wo- 
men facilities  for  doing  first-class  work  as  students  and 
of  failing  to  let  them  have  the  ordinary  recognition  of  the 
results  accomplished  in  this  work. 

Emmanuel  College.  With  Emmanuel  College,  I  had 
but  one  personal  association.  I  had  met  the  Master, 
Dr.  William  Chawner,  under  the  guidance  of  my  friend 
Neil,  of  Pembroke,  and  impressed  with  Neil's  pleasant 
word  about  his  Yankee  friend,  the  Master  had  invited  me 
to  dine  with  him  the  following  night  at  Emmanuel.  The 
afternoon  before  the  dinner,  I  was  taking  a  quiet  bicycle 
ride  in  the  outskirts  and  found  myself  driven  into  a  ditch 
in  order  to  avoid  utter  destruction  by  a  speeding  cyclist 
who  issued,  without  bell  or  warning,  from  a  lane  at  right 
angles  to  the  main  road  on  which  I  was  innocently  travel- 
ling. As  I  picked  myself  up  from  the  ditch,  the  cyclist, 
without  stopping  his  furious  gait,  turned  to  see  whether 
I  was  still  alive,  and  I  identified  the  characteristic  head  of 
Chawner,  but  he,  in  his  haste,  had  failed  to  get  as  good  a 
view  of  his  victim.  Sitting  at  his  right  in  the  evening,  I 
said  something  about  exercising  by  cycle,  and  suddenly 
the  recognition  passed  into  his  face.  "What,"  he  said, 
"Mr.  Putnam,  you  were  the  man  that  I  nearly  rode  over 
this  afternoon;  I  pray  now  to  tender  my  very  sincere 
apologies.  The  fact  is  that  I  was  very  much  absorbed 
in  something  that  I  was  thinking  about  and  I  had  forgotten 
speed,  cycle,  road  rules,  and  everything  else.  I  am  very 
glad  indeed  the  mischief  was  no  worse."  It  was  easy  to 
forgive  a  man  as  interesting  as  Chawner,  and  I  was  de- 


228  Cambridge 

lighted  to  have  a  word  with  him  later  in  the  evening  in 
the  combination  room. 

A  year  or  two  afterwards,  I  read  with  keen  interest 
the  letter  from  Chawner  which  fell  like  a  bombshell  among 
the  college  heads  and  the  other  protectors  of  Cambridge 
traditions.  Chawner  took  the  view  that  there  was  no- 
thing in  the  constitution  of  the  University,  or  in  the  consti- 
tution of  Emmanuel  College,  which  placed  an  obligation 
upon  the  head  of  the  college  to  hold  belief,  or  to  accept 
belief,  in  the  thirty-nine  articles,  or  in  certain  other  things 
belonging  to  the  essential  faith  of  the  Church  of  England. 
He  took  the  ground  further  that  the  first  duty  of  a  college 
head  to  his  pupils  was  to  inculcate  a  standard  of  strict 
veracity,  and  that  any  man  who  for  one  convenience  or 
another  maintained  the  form  of  a  creed  which  he  no  longer 
held  as  a  fact  was  not  fit  to  be  the  instructor  of  youth,  or 
the  head  of  a  college.  The  question  was,  of  course,  com- 
plicated in  more  ways  than  one.  I  had  full  sympathy 
with  Chawner's  intellectual  position  and  the  honesty  of 
his  utterance.  I  was  able  also,  however,  with  some 
knowledge  of  college  constitutions  and  requirements,  to 
recognize  that  there  rested  upon  the  head  of  a  college  a 
kind  of  trust  obligation  to  do  nothing  which  would  be 
likely  to  interfere  with  the  foundations  of  the  institution 
or  to  lessen  its  attractiveness  for  youngsters  of  the  right 
kind.  The  issue  presented  by  the  Master  of  Emmanuel 
seemed  to  me  to  be  very  much  of  a  divided  duty.  I 
wrote  from  New  York  a  cordial  letter  of  interest  and 
sympathy. 

I  found  myself  much  in  doubt  as  to  what  the  results  of 
Chawner's  utterance  would  be  for  himself,  or  for  his 
college,  or  for  the  University.  I  think  it  probable  that 
he  would  have  found  it  necessary  to  resign.  Shortly 
after  the  writing  of  my  letter,  he  was,  however,  seized  with 
an  illness  which  proved  to  be  fatal,  and  when  I  got  to 


King's  229 

Cambridge,  I  found  that  my  letter  had  arrived  after  his 
death. 

He  was  a  noteworthy  character  and  his  manliness,  his 
intellectual  force,  and  his  integrity  of  purpose  ought  to 
have  been  preserved  for  further  years  for  the  service  of 
Emmanuel  and  of  the  University. 

King's.  I  have  often  thought  that  if  I  were  an  English 
parent  with  a  boy  to  spare  for  the  university,  and  that  if 
for  any  reason  I  could  not  make  place  for  him  in  Balliol 
or  in  New  in  Oxford,  I  should  send  him  to  King's  in  Cam- 
bridge. The  college  has  always  impressed  me  as  the 
model  of  what  a  scholarly  community  should  be,  and,  as 
we  all  know,  it  has  maintained  through  the  generations, 
and  in  its  connection  with  Eton,  a  high  standard  of  schol- 
arly work  and  of  scholarly  output.  While  I  have  had  in 
King's  no  near  friends,  I  have  come  into  pleasant  personal 
relations  with  men  like  Dr.  Waldstein,  an  authority  on 
Greek  art,  and  on  a  good  many  matters  besides,  and  with 
Oscar  Browning,  now  retired,  an  industrious  scholar  in 
many  divisions  of  history,  and  whose  range  included,  also, 
certain  departments  of  literature.  Browning  was  then 
a  man  of  enormous  industry  and  intellectual  ambition, 
and  the  only  difficulty  with  him  was  that  he  would  spread 
his  energies  out  over  too  many  subjects.  He  did  fair  work 
in  a  number  of  directions.  As  far  as  I  know  his  long  list 
of  publications,  he  is  however '  responsible  for  no  single 
book  that  can  really  be  called  a  great  original  contribution 
to  its  subject. 

I  remember  his  telling  me  once  in  his  library,  with  a 
wave  of  his  hand  over  his  shelves,  "Putnam,  I  can  give 
you  a  book  on  any  of  those  subjects."  I  understand  that 
Browning,  who  has  for  some  years  been  retired,  was  an 
excellent  teacher,  but  I  always  felt  that  he  did  not  have 
respect  enough  for  literature  as  a  profession,  and  that  the 
failure  of  a  high  ideal  had  stood  in  the  way  of  his  achieving 


230  Cambridge 

a  distinctive  literary  success.  The  undergraduates  and 
his  friends  (and  the  circle  of  these  was  large)  always  re- 
ferred to  him  affectionately  as  O.  B.,  and  his  genial  pre- 
sence must  have  been  very  much  missed  from  the  circle 
of  King's. 

The  man  of  most  original  intellectual  force  during  the 
years  in  which  I  was  in  personal  relations  with  the  King's 
group  was  undoubtedly  Lowes  Dickinson,  philosopher, 
political  thinker,  and  satirist.  The  first  book  that  brought 
Dickinson  into  the  knowledge  of  the  general  public  (in 
his  college  circle  he  had  received  early  recognition  as  a 
man  of  original  force)  was  the  Letters  of  a  Chinese  Official. 
These  criticisms  of  English  life,  written  from  the  point 
of  view  of  a  Chinaman,  were  so  excellent  in  their  presen- 
tation that  they  for  a  time  deceived  even  the  elect,  but 
they  were  finally  acknowledged  as  belonging  to  the  same 
class  as  Pascal's  Letters  and  several  other  famous  books 
of  the  same  type.  With  the  King's  group,  should  also  be 
mentioned  that  excellent  historian  Reddaway,  who  pre- 
pared, at  my  instance,  for  our  Heroes  of  the  Nations 
series,  an  authoritative  study  of  Frederick  the  Great. 

Christ's.  My  association  with  Christ's  is  in  connection 
.with  the  Darwins,  a  family  which  I  consider  as  belonging 
to  the  nobility  of  Great  Britain  and  of  the  world.  I  was 
first  introduced  to  the  college  as  the  guest  of  George,  later 
Sir  George,  Darwin,  the  well-known  mathematician  and 
physicist,  at  whose  house  I  enjoyed  for  a  series  of  years 
graceful  hospitality.  Later,  I  came  into  closer  personal 
relations  with  the  younger  brother  Francis,  or  Frank,  the 
biographer  of  his  famous  father.  I  have  heard  it  said 
that  Frank  possibly  possessed  the  most  original  mind  in 
the  talented  group  of  brothers.  Apart  from  his  intel- 
lectual force,  which  I,  as  an  ignoramus,  was  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  measure,  I  have  during  the  years  that  have  passed 
come  to  have  an  increasing  affectionate  regard  for  the 


Christ's  231 

man.  Here  again  I  have  the  case  of  a  friend  who  is  so 
near  and  dear  to  me  that  I  dare  not  undertake  his  descrip- 
tion in  print.  Frank  Darwin  impresses  me  as  typical  of 
the  best  that  there  is  in  an  Englishman — wise,  well 
balanced,  forcible,  generous  in  spirit,  exceptionally  modest, 
clear-headed  on  questions  of  the  day,  always  ready  to  do 
his  part — and  more  than  his  part — in  any  service  for  the 
community,  and  possessing  withal  a  charm  of  manner 
and  sympathetic  nature  that  makes  him  a  most  attractive 
friend  and  host.  Of  his  brother  Horace,  also  distinguished 
as  a  mathematician  and  maker  of  mathematical  instru- 
ments, I  have  also  the  most  attractive  impression,  but 
with  him  I  have  not  had  the  privilege  of  a  close  associa- 
tion. It  was  only  recently  that  my  old  friend  Arthur 
Shipley  has  become  Master  of  Christ's.  I  knew  of  Shipley 
as  a  scientist  of  original  force  and  capacity,  and  as  a  man 
of  exceptional  geniality  and  good  fellowship.  For  some 
reason  the  conception  of  Shipley  as  the  head  of  a  college 
had  not  occurred  to  me,  but  I  found  him  carrying  his 
headship  with  full  dignity  and,  as  I  am  told,  with  excep- 
tional efficiency. 

I  cannot  leave  the  subject  of  Cambridge  without  re- 
cording a  word  of  appreciation  of  the  charming  hospitality 
extended  to  me  through  a  series  of  years  by  Sir  Richard 
and  Lady  Jebb.  Lady  Jebb  possesses  what  may  be 
called  the  social  faculty.  She  knows  how  to  bring  together 
the  right  kind  of  guests  and  how  to  constitute  a  social 
unit  when  they  are  together.  She  possesses  the  natural 
touch  for  sympathetic  relations  with  the  people  with 
whom  she  has  to  do.  She  is  the  kind  of  hostess 
one  finds  in  Paris,  and,  it  is  necessary  to  admit,  much 
less  frequently  in  Great  Britain.  In  England,  there  is 
excellent  good-will  on  the  part  of  thousands  of  charming 
hostesses,  but  the  lightness  of  touch  and  the  particular 
savoir  faire  which  can  organize  a  social  unit  is  more 


232  Cambridge 

difficult  to  find.  It  is,  therefore,  fair  to  mention  in  this 
relation  that  Lady  Jebb  is  an  American.  The  only  criti- 
cism I  ever  heard  of  her  leadership  in  England  was  that 
it  was  not  fair  for  an  attractive  American  woman,  possess- 
ing social  position,  social  charm,  and  social  influence,  to 
bring  over  to  England  her  attractive  American  nieces. 
There  are,  it  is  claimed,  more  than  enough  women  in 
England  to  meet  all  present  requirements.  Sir  George 
Darwin,  however,  took  a  different  view  of  the  matter  and 
was  fortunate  enough  to  secure  one  of  Lady  Jebb's  at- 
tractive nieces.  I  think  a  second  niece  was  carried  off 
by  some  other  clear-headed  Englishman. 

Newnham  and  Degrees  for  Women.  I  made  my  first 
visit  to  Newnham  College  a  year  or  two  after  the  beginning 
of  its  work.  The  college  was  fortunate  in  the  quality  of 
the  women  who  took  hold  of  its  management  and  has  con- 
tinued fortunate  in  the  service  that  has  been  secured  in  the 
later  years.  I  met,  in  the  first  place,  Miss  Clough,  who 
had  a  personal  interest  in  me  because  my  father  had  in 
the  early  fifties  given  to  her  brother  the  first  money  that 
the  young  poet  had  been  able  to  earn  in  New  York,  and 
had  been  of  service  to  him  in  other  ways.  With  Miss 
Clough,  or  later,  I  met  Miss  Gladstone,  who  possessed  in 
full  measure  the  dignity  and  the  efficiency  of  her  remark- 
able family. 

My  home  in  New  York  had  always  been  the  centre  of 
activities  connected  with  the  higher  education  of  women. 
My  first  wife  had  been  one  of  the  earlier  college  graduates 
in  the  country,  and  two  of  her  daughters  had  done  work 
in  Bryn  Mawr.  My  present  wife  is  a  graduate — it  is  not 
an  exaggeration  to  say,  a  distinguished  graduate — of  the 
first  Bryn  Mawr  class  and  has  later  rendered  exceptional 
service  to  higher  education  in  six  years'  work  as  Dean, 
(the  first  dean  in  the  series)  of  Barnard  College.  She 
did  not  give  up  her  work  with  Barnard  until  some  time 


Newnham  and  Degrees  for  Women    233 

after  her  marriage  when  she  was  able  to  report  that  Bar- 
nard had  been  accepted  into  full  affiliation  with  Columbia 
University,  so  that  graduates  of  Barnard  were  graduates 
of  the  University. 

I  found  my  friends  in  Newnham  inquiring  from  year  to 
year  as  to  the  progress  of  women's  education  in  the  United 
States,  and  hearing  with  some  measure  of  envy  that  not 
only  in  the  coeducational  State  institutions  in  the  West, 
but  in  such  universities  as  Columbia  in  the  East,  women 
had  been  able  to  secure  full  and  formal  recognition  for 
such  work  as  they  had  shown  themselves  competent  to  do 
as  students.  I  may  mention  for  the  benefit  of  my 
American  readers  that  while  the  students  of  Newnham 
and  Girton  in  Cambridge,  and  Somerville,  Lady  Margaret, 
and  St.  Hughes  in  Oxford,  are  permitted  to  take  university 
courses  and  to  compete  in  university  examinations,  they 
secure  at  the  close  of  their  examinations  not  degrees,  but 
simply  certificates  of  proficiency.  I  recall  one  noteworthy 
example  of  such  an  unjust  discrimination  between  the 
man  student  and  the  woman  student.  I  was  in  the  Senate 
House  in  Cambridge  at  the  time  the  public  orator  was 
making  announcement  of  the  degrees.  I  was  standing 
between  Mrs.  Fawcett,  who  was  an  old-time  acquaintance, 
and  her  clever  daughter  Philippa,  who  had  been  doing 
work  in  the  mathematical  tripos.  The  orator  calls  out  the 
name  of  the  senior  wrangler,  say,  A.  B.,  and  of  the  second, 
third,  and  fourth  wrangler,  and  then  with  a  later  group  of 
reports  he  comes  to  the  women  students.  The  first  name 
on  the  list  of  these  was  that  of  Philippa  Fawcett,  recorded 
not  only  by  the  voice  of  the  public  orator,  but  by  the 
reports  of  the  press  throughout  England  and  the  Empire,  as 
standing  four  hundred  marks  above  the  senior  wrangler; 
but  Philippa  could  secure  only  a  certificate.  The  girl  was 
crying  a  little  at  her  triumph,  but  the  crowd  was  dense  and 
we  could  not  get  away  from  our  position  in  the  gallery. 


234  Cambridge 

There  came  working  his  way  through  the  crowd,  first 
from  the  floor  below,  then  up  the  stairs  and  along  the 
gallery,  a  good-looking  youngster  who,  at  the  time  he 
reached  us,  had  suffered  so  seriously  from  the  friction  of 
those  whom  he  had  pushed  to  one  side  that  his  coat  had 
been  torn  into  pieces  and  the  fragments  hung  over  his 
left  arm.  Unabashed,  and  with  an  English  mixture  of 
shyness  and  courtesy,  he  held  out  his  hand  to  congratulate 
Philippa.  It  -was  the  senior  wrangler  who  had  fought 
his  way  through  the  house  in  order  to  give  greetings  to 
the  girl  by  whom  he  had  been  beaten.  I  thought  myself 
it  was  a  very  pretty  example  of  English  manliness. 

The  University  Press.  For  a  series  of  years,  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons  have  had  the  honour  of  being  the  Ameri- 
can publishers  for  the  Pitt  Press  of  Cambridge,  and  we 
have  esteemed  it  a  privilege  to  associate  the  imprint  of 
the  House  with  a  series  of  books  which  stand  for  the  high- 
est scholarship,  more  particularly,  of  course,  for  the 
highest  scientific  scholarship,  of  Great  Britain.  The 
barriers  of  national  prejudices  are  still  strong  enough  to 
interfere  with  a  full  exchange  of  literature  and  particu- 
larly of  educational  literature.  England  is  suspicious 
of  text-books  or  works  claiming  to  possess  scientific 
or  scholarly  authority,  emanating  from  the  western  side 
of  the  Atlantic,  and  the  United  States,  while  much  less  pre- 
judiced, needs  some  convincing  in  order  to  be  made  to 
understand  that  for  certain  classes  of  subjects  the  English 
books,  and  particularly  those  in  the  higher  grades  of 
school  work,  present  material  that  cannot  be  secured,  or 
that  cannot  be  secured  with  the  same  thoroughness  or 
excellence  of  workmanship,  in  America.  We  are  able  to 
report,  however,  that  these  Cambridge  books  are  coming 
into  increasing  demand  through  all  parts  of  the  United 
States,  and  it  is  my  conviction  that  such  exchange  of  publi- 
cations constitutes  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  links 


The  University  Press  235 

that  serve  to  bind  together  the  intelligence,  the  sympa- 
thies, and  the  understanding  of  the  two  peoples.  In  placing 
American  books  in  England  and  in  utilizing  an  increasing 
quantity  of  English  books  in  the  United  States,  we  are 
building  up  connections  of  thought  and  links  of  sympathy 
such  as  can  never  come  into  existence  between  two  coun- 
tries that  do  not  work  with  the  same  language. 

My  first  experience  with  the  Press  was  under  the 
management  of  the  scholarly  and  nice-natured  Dr.  Wright ; 
while  our  relations  are  now  carried  on,  as  far  at  least 
as  Cambridge  is  concerned,  with  that  excellent  scholar, 
Mr.  A.  R.  Waller.  The  only  grievance  that  Waller's 
friends  have  against  him  is  his  practice  of  burning  his 
candle  at  both  ends.  He  will  persist  in  doing  work  to 
maintain  his  position  as  an  authority  on  English,  and 
particularly  on  Elizabethan,  literature,  while  at  the  same 
time  undertaking  to  give  attention  to  all  kinds  of  business 
details,  manufacturing  methods,  terms  of  sales,  discounts, 
trade  relations,  etc.,  that  ought  never  to  be  left  in  the 
hands  of  a  working  scholar.  It  is  not  that  he  does  not 
do  both  things  well,  but  no  such  diverse  responsibilities 
should  ever  be  carried  by  one  man,  or  can  be  so  carried 
without  the  risk  of  a  physical  break.  Mr.  Waller  is  too 
valuable  for  the  Press,  for  the  literary  interests  of  England, 
and  I  may  add  for  the  personal  comfort  and  convenience 
of  the  American  correspondents  of  the  Press,  to  be  per- 
mitted to  incur  unnecessary  risks  of  being  overburdened. 

The  genial  master  of  Peterhouse,  T.  Adolphus  Ward,  has 
been  an  important  influence  in  the  Press  in  more  ways  than 
one.  His  later,  and  perhaps  most  important,  service  has 
been  given  in  editorial  work  (in  co-operation  with  Mr. 
Waller)  on  the  great  Cambridge  History  of  English  Litera- 
ture, a  work  the  plan  and  the  execution  of  which  do  credit 
to  the  enterprise,  the  executive  ability,  and  the  scholarly 
facilities  of  the  group  of  Cambridge  literary  workers. 


236  Cambridge 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  put  in  train  in  the  year  1914  a 
scheme  for  a  companion  work,  The  Cambridge  History 
of  American  Literature,  which  will  round  out  the  plan  of 
the  English  undertaking,  and  will,  we  may  hope,  do  some- 
thing to  make  better  known  to  students  of  literature 
not  only  the  names  but  the  relative  importance  of  the 
work  of  the  authors  who  have  during  the  past  one  hundred 
and  thirty  years  been  building  up  what  may  now  fairly 
be  called  an  American  literature. 


CHAPTER  X 
Some  EnglisH  Friends 

Clovelly.  In  1881,  I  found  myself,  in  company  with 
my  mother  and  my  sister  Amy,  at  the  charming  little  village 
of  Clovelly  on  the  Devonshire  coast.  Clovelly  is  always 
referred  to  as  one  of  the  beauties  of  England,  but  forty 
years  ago  it  was  not  so  much  of  a  resort  as  it  has  since 
become.  The  water-colour  which  my  sister,  who  was 
clever  with  her  brush,  painted  for  me  as  a  reminiscence 
of  her  visit  shows  the  one  steep  little  street  coming  up  from 
the  pier  at  the  end  of  which  stands  the  old  inn,  dating 
back  to  about  1200,  past  the  "new  inn"  (which  began 
a  couple  of  centuries  later),  and  extending  perhaps  a  third 
of  the  way  up  the  steep  cliff  towards  the  coaching  road 
on  the  top.  In  the  course  of  centuries  (I  judge  that  Clo- 
velly never  does  things  in  a  hurry),  the  village  will  prob- 
ably climb  to  the  top  of  the  cliff.  It  must  always,  I 
suppose,  be  safe  from  the  incursion  of  wheeled  vehicles  and 
of  the  special  importation  of  the  twentieth  century,  the 
auto-car;  the  little  street  is  too  narrow  and  too  steep  to 
give  accommodation  for  anything  larger  in  the  matter  of 
traffic  than  the  small  donkeys  whose  sharply  shod  little 
feet  tinkle  against  the  stones  through  the  hours  of  day  and 
night.  This  main  street,  the  Broadway,  Fifth  Avenue, 
or  Piccadilly  of  Clovelly,  loses  itself  a  few  hundred  feet 
from  the  beach  in  the  kitchen  of  one  of  the  cottages.  The 

237 


238  Some  English  Friends 

house  had  either  been  cut  through  to  allow  space  for  the 
roadway  or  had  been  built  on  both  sides  of  the  roadway. 
The  kitchen  ceiling  was  just  high  enough  to  allow  a  donkey 
to  pass  if  the  rider  were  not  very  tall,  and  the  household 
work  went  on  without  any  reference  to  the  passers-by. 

My  sister's  sketch  recalls  also  the  magnificent  fuchsias, 
which  grew  not  in  meagre  pots  as  I  had  heretofore  been 
acquainted  with  them,  but  in  great  masses  over  the  roofs 
of  the  cottages. 

At  the  time  of  my  visit,  Kingsley's  second  daughter, 
Mary,  was  living  in  Clovelly  as  the  wife  of  the  vicar,  Mr. 
Harrison.  I  had  brought  a  note  of  introduction  from  a 
literary  friend  in  London  and  found  Mrs.  Harrison  very 
ready  to  be  civil  to  my  mother  and  sister  and  interested 
in  giving  me  full  knowledge  of  the  parish.  I  remember 
one  afternoon's  drive  with  her  behind  the  vicar's  donkey. 
The  vicar  was  at  the  time  absent  in  London  and  his  wife 
was  doing  the  parochial  visiting.  She  told  me  that  I 
should  doubtless  be  mistaken  for  a  new  curate  who  had 
been  impending  but  who  had  not  yet  been  secured.  It 
was,  therefore,  my  duty,  as  she  went  into  the  cottage  to 
give  the  proper  ecclesiastical  greeting  to  the  old  woman, 
to  examine  in  their  catechism  the  youngsters  who  stood 
about  the  door.  I  had  once  known  the  main  provisions 
of  the  Church  catechism,  but  at  this  time  I  found  my 
memory  somewhat  hazy.  I  therefore  compromised  with 
the  children  by  telling  them  wild  American  stories  and  I 
do  not  recall  any  objection  on  their  part.  It  cost  me, 
however,  all  the  pennies  in  my  pocket  to  make  sure  that 
the  children  should  hold  their  peace  and  not  give  away 
the  reputation  of  the  vicarage  through  the  frivolity  of  the 
vicar's  guest. 

After  finishing  the  visitations  in  the  parish,  Mrs.  Har- 
rison drove  me  to  a  neighbouring  parish  where  a  school 
friend  of  hers,  Mrs.  Colonel  S.,  was  the  lady  of  the  manor. 


Clovelly  239 

S.  Abbey  was  a  beautiful  old  house  rebuilt  from  the  origi- 
nal abbey,  which  stood  in  the  centre  of  an  oval  park. 
The  park  was  surrounded  by  a  great  growth  of  old  trees 
and  from  the  abbey  windows  could  be  seen  no  other  build- 
ings excepting  the  beautiful  little  parish  church,  place  for 
which  had  been  found  in  one  corner  of  the  park.  Mrs.  S. 
was  a  good  deal  of  an  invalid  and  her  school-fellow  told 
me  later  one  of  the  reasons  for  her  sadness.  It  had  been 
to  her  and  also  to  the  Colonel  a  continuing  disappointment 
that  there  was  no  heir,  and,  in  fact,  no  child.  "In  the 
history  of  the  abbey,  it  is  recorded,"  said  Mrs.  Harrison, 
"that  when,  under  the  dispossessing  procedure  of  Henry 
Eighth,  the  monks  were  driven  out,  the  abbot,  the  last 
of  his  line,  turned  at  the  entrance  and  invoked  a  curse  on 
all  who  should  occupy  a  building  that  was  the  property 
of  the  Lord.  No  son  was  to  inherit  land  that  belonged 
properly  to  the  Church. ' '  It  was  the  further  story  that  the 
successive  holders  of  the  manor  had  not  been  able  to  hand 
down  the  property  in  any  direct  line.  In  the  majority  of 
cases  no  son  was  given,  and  when  a  son  had  been  born, 
he  managed  to  get  out  of  the  world  before  the  time  came 
for  his  inheritance.  Colonel  S.  himself  was,  as  Mrs. 
Harrison  explained,  the  nephew  of  the  previous  lord  of  the 
manor.  His  wife,  weakened  by  illness,  was  falling  into 
melancholia  and  was  feeling  upon  her  the  burden  of  the 
curse  of  the  Church.  She  had  even  been  pressing  upon 
her  husband  the  suggestion  of  giving  the  property  back 
to  the  Church  so  that  the  family  and  the  manor  itself 
could  be  relieved  of  this  curse  of  three  centuries.  The 
Colonel,  with  the  natural  pride  and  feeling  of  responsibility 
belonging  to  the  descendant  of  a  great  family,  had  thus 
far  been  unwilling  to  take  any  such  exceptional  step. 

He  came  in  a  little  later  and  did  very  gracefully  the 
honours  of  the  abbey.  He  showed  me  among  other  things 
a  series  of  family  pictures  which  began  with  an  S.  of  the 


240  Some  English  Friends 

time  of  Richard  the  Lion-hearted  who  was  pictured  as 
spitting  on  his  spear  two  Paynims  at  one  blow.  The 
last  figure  in  the  line  was  my  host  himself  pictured  as  a 
good-looking  ensign,  carrying  at  Inkerman  the  colours 
of  his  regiment.  The  Colonel  saw  my  eyes  rest  upon  the 
athletic  feat  of  his  Palestine  ancestor.  "It  is  not  neces- 
sary, Mr.  Putnam,  to  believe  everything  that  is  chronicled 
about  one's  ancestors."  He  was  here  called  upon  by  a 
messenger  from  an  old  woman  who  had  charge  of  the 
hospital  for  his  fowls,  with  the  word  that  a  highly  valued 
guinea-hen,  laid  up  with  a  broken  leg,  had  managed  to 
flutter  away.  He  hurried  off  to  recapture  the  hen  and 
asked  for  my  aid.  The  Colonel  was  very  comfortably 
attired  for  the  task  of  going  over  fields  and  into  ditches, 
while  I  had  on  the  only  reputable  suit  that  I  happened 
to  have  with  me.  The  hen  was  found  after  a  thorough 
ransacking  of  the  wettest  ditches  on  the  estate,  and  the 
old  woman  having  been  first  scolded  to  tears  and  then 
recuperated  with  a  half-crown,  we  returned  to  the  abbey 
for  a  brush-down  and  for  tea. 

I  hope  that  the  Colonel  may  in  his  later  years  have  been 
freed  from  the  sadness  of  the  melancholia  of  his  wife  and 
from  having  recalled  to  him  the  curse  of  the  old  abbot. 

Bedford  Park.  In  my  visits  to  London  in  the  early 
eighties,  I  came  to  know  the  community  in  Bedford  Park, 
Chiswick.  This  suburban  settlement  had  been  instituted 
recently  on  grounds  purchased  for  the  purpose  by  a  real 
estate  syndicate,  and  special  efforts  had  been  made  to 
attract  into  the  community  men  who  had  literary  or 
art  interests.  The  houses  constructed  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  managers  of  the  estate  were  picturesque  to 
look  at,  but  I  heard  later  from  some  of  the  earlier  settlers 
that  some  of  these  houses  represented  a  bad  type  of  "jerry 
building"  and  were  by  no  means  comfortable  to  live  in. 
The  rents  at  the  outset  at  least  were  low.  The  settlement 


Bedford  Park  241 

attracted  in  these  earlier  years  men  like  Frederick  York 
Powell,  who  while  busy  through  the  week  in  Christ  Church, 
Oxford,  made  a  week-end  home  at  Bedford  Park;  James 
Sime,  critic,  historian,  and  student  of  philosophy;  Moncure 
D.  Conway,  who  at  that  time  had  charge  of  a  very 
undenominational  congregation  in  the  east  of  London; 
Todhunter,  the  poet,  and  others  who  were,  like  these,  men 
distinctive  in  character,  in  work,  or  in  attainments. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Conway  collected  at  their  Sunday  after- 
noon receptions  interesting  groups  of  visitors  who  would 
make  their  way  from  fairly  distant  points  in  and  near 
London  for  the  purpose  of  reaching  a  circle  where  they 
could  exchange  thought  freely  without  restriction  either 
denominational  or  conventional.  On  Sunday  evenings, 
through  a  large  part  of  the  year,  were  gathered  together 
at  Sime's,  or  Todhunter's,  or  Conway's,  a  group,  composed 
in  the  main  of  Bedford  Park  residents,  who  undertook 
in  the  course  of  a  season's  discussion  to  adjust  the  pro- 
blems of  the  universe.  I  have  the  impression,  writing 
forty-odd  years  later,  that  some  of  these  problems  still 
call  for  consideration. 

I  understand  that  Bedford  Park  has  now  changed  its 
character.  The  earlier  houses  have  been  reconstructed 
and  the  later  buildings  represent  a  modern  standard  of 
comfort  and  of  hygienic  safety;  but  the  literary  and 
artistic  character  of  the  settlement  has  passed,  and  I  am 
told  that  the  community  no  longer  takes  upon  itself  the 
responsibility  for  steering  the  universe. 

James  Sime  and  John  Fiske.  I  recall  an  excursion  on 
the  Thames  on  a  pleasant  June  day,  probably  in  the 
early  eighties.  The  company  comprised  three  Americans 
and  one  Scotchman,  and  we  had  taken  a  boat  (without  a 
boatman)  for  a  day's  enjoyment  of  a  sunshine  that  is  not 
so  common  in  England  in  early  June.  It  was  the  Scotch- 
man James  Sime  who  had  the  responsibility  as  host; 

16 


242  Some  English  Friends 

that  is  to  say  we  had  started  after  breakfast  from  his 
pleasant  house  in  Bedford  Park  and  we  were  to  return 
there  for  supper.  The  Americans  were  John  Fiske,  Henry 
Holt,  and  myself. 

Sime  was  a  literary  worker,  a  good  historical  scholar, 
a  student  of  metaphysics  (an  interest  that  few  intellectual 
Scotchmen  escape),  and  a  very  good  fellow,  whose  early 
death  a  year  or  two  later  brought  sadness  to  a  circle  of 
much  attached  friends.  Holt,  the  New  York  publisher, 
is  referred  to  elsewhere  in  these  pages.  In  these  earlier 
years,  he  was,  as  he  always  has  been  throughout  his  life, 
a  most  genial  and  sympathetic  companion.  His  mind 
was  full  of  knowledge  in  various  directions,  and  his  opin- 
ions were  always  suggestive  and  individual,  and  often 
illuminating.  Fiske  was  the  only  man  of  the  four  whose 
name  is  likely  to  live  beyond  his  generation.  He  was 
already  known  for  historical  work  which  combines  thor- 
oughness of  research,  charm  of  literary  form,  and  skill  in 
characterization.  It  is  probably  by  his  volumes  on 
American  history  that  his  fame  will  be  preserved.  It  is 
my  impression,  however,  that  his  personal  ambitions  were 
more  closely  bound  up  with  his  philosophical  studies  and 
that  such  a  volume  as  the  Idea  of  God,  standing  as  it 
did  for  an  expression  of  his  most  personal  and  carefully 
thought-out  ideas,  is  the  book  by  which  he  hoped  he 
would  remain  known  in  the  years  to  come. 

I  was  impressed  on  this  day  (I  had  never  before  passed 
hours  in  Fiske's  company)  with  the  extent  of  his  memory. 
In  the  range  of  his  references  and  the  variety  of  subjects 
on  which  he  had  definite  knowledge  and  the  literature 
which  he  was  able  to  quote  at  the  moment,  Fiske  recalled 
the  descriptions  given  of  Macaulay  for  omnivorousness  of 
absorbing  capacity  and  fertility  of  expression.  Whether 
it  were  a  text  of  Zoroaster,  a  quotation  from  Molinos  or 
Boehme,  a  citation  from  a  recent  debate  in  the  corps 


James  Sime  and  John  Fiske  243 

legislatif,  or  a  page  from  Dickens,  Fiske's  mind  and  voice 
worked  as  if  he  were  sitting  in  his  library  and  were  reading 
from  first  one  volume  or  pamphlet  and  then  another.  The 
river  recalled  at  various  points  scenes  from  Dickens,  and 
it  was  the  Dickens  quotations,  coming  from  a  man  whose 
working  hours  had  been  given  to  many  things  other  than 
fiction,  which  surprised  us  the  most  for  their  comprehen- 
siveness and  precision,  or  at  least  apparent  precision,  of 
language.  No  one  of  us  carried  in  his  own  head  a  suffi- 
ciently close  memory  of  the  texts  to  be  able  to  check  off 
our  big  historian  if  he  should  miss  a  paragraph  or  twist 
a  sentence,  but  as  he  spoke  the  effect  was  precisely  as  if 
he  were  reading  Oliver  Twist  or  The  Mutual  Friend,  and 
the  utterance  was  given  with  a  charm  of  expression  and 
a  skill  of  characterization  that  brought  the  scenes  very 
vividly  before  us.  It  was  little  Oliver  that  was  first 
brought  to  our  attention  as  our  boat  drifted  up  against  a 
point  of  land  at  Chertsey.  "I  think,"  said  Fiske,  "it 
would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  record  of  the  burglary. 
The  path  is  clearer  to  us  than  it  was  to  Oliver  and  his 
friends,  for  we  have  it  by  broad  daylight  and  their  attack 
was  made,  as  you  will  remember,  in  the  small  hours  of 
the  morning."  He  then,  so  to  speak,  "read  off"  to  us 
the  detailed  narrative  of  the  landing  of  Sykes  and  his 
friends,  of  the  dragging  of  Oliver  across  the  fields,  of  the 
pushing  of  the  little  boy  into  the  window  of  the  butler's 
pantry,  of  the  alarm  and  the  scurrying  back  across  the 
fields,  and  of  the  dropping  of  Oliver  and  the  escape  of  the 
several  villains.  Then,  with  an  entirely  different  expres- 
sion of  voice,  comes  in  the  morning  the  finding  of  Oliver 
by  Rose  Maylie  and  her  aunt,  the  account  of  the  burglary 
by  the  butler,  and  the  visit  and  little  plot  of  the  kind- 
hearted  physician.  We  found  a  house  that  was  about  the 
right  distance  from  the  water,  and  Fiske  was  able  even  to 
point  out  with  triumph  a  window  of  the  right  height  and 


244  Some  English  Friends 

width  through  which  the  boy  must  have  been  pushed. 
In  spite  of  the  broad  sunshine,  we  were  able  to  picture  to 
ourselves  quite  clearly  the  little  drama  that  had  passed 
in  the  dark  hours  of  the  night.  Lower  down  the  river, 
we  came  into  touch  with  the  first  group  of  characters 
presented  in  Our  Mutual  Friend  and  assisted  (at  least  in 
the  French  sense  of  the  term)  in  recovering  from  the 
flood  one  of  the  bodies  that  was  being  looked  for  and  the 
sale  of  which  'was  to  make  wages  for  the  night  work  of 
Rogue  Riderhood  and  Gaffer  Hexam. 

Of  course  during  the  long  hours  of  the  day  much  else 
besides  things  Dickensian  came  into  the  conversations, 
but  it  was  the  pages  of  Dickens  that  constituted  perhaps 
the  best  example  of  this  man's  photographic  memory  of 
word  and  of  detail.  From  Sime  we  secured  (with  a  little 
difficulty  because  he  was  a  shy  man  even  when  in  a  circle 
of  near  friends)  reminiscences  of  experiences  in  his  Scotch 
university  and  of  his  later  work  in  Germany  when  he  was 
collecting  materials  for  his  Life  of  Lessing.  Holt  gave  us 
some  word  about  the  life  of  a  student  in  Yale,  the  relation 
of  Americans  to  things  English  and  opinions  or  impressions 
in  regard  to  a  number  of  the  literary  topics  that  were 
brought  up. 

We  lunched  at  a  small  inn  on  the  riverside  and  under 
the  influence  of  pipes  and  tobacco,  the  conversation  drifted 
into  metaphysical  directions  and  to  the  consideration  of 
the  problems  of  the  universe. 

The  pleasant  experience  of  this  day  of  personal  converse 
in  the  company  of  two  mutual  friends  (if  this  clumsy  Dick- 
ensian expression  may  be  permitted)  brought  me  into  per- 
sonal relations  with  Fiske  which  made  my  later  meeting 
with  him  in  New  York  and  elsewhere  always  a  pleasure. 

I  remember  a  word  that  he  once  gave  to  a  literary  group 
of  friends  in  regard  to  a  practical  experience  of  his  own  of 
the  growth  of  the  myth: 


James  Sime  and  John  Fiske  245 

I  had  [said  he]  as  a  youngster,  an  experience  of  a  year  or 
two  in  a  school  in  a  small  village  in  Connecticut.  The  school 
was  so  inconsiderable  and  unimportant  that  it  is  fair  to  say 
without  conceit  that  I  was  probably  as  important  a  person 
as  had  ever  studied  there.  In  fact,  I  have  never  been  able  to 
find  among  men  noteworthy  or  other  in  later  life  a  single 
one  of  my  school  associates.  I  had,  nevertheless,  a  pleasant 
remembrance  of  the  schoolhouse  and  of  my  work  there,  such 
as  ought  always  to  be  retained  by  a  student  whose  school 
hours  have  not  been  absolutely  muddled,  and  I  took  the 
opportunity  some  years  back  of  staying  over  a  train  for  the 
purpose  of  making  a  call  at  the  schoolhouse.  My  visit  hap- 
pened to  coincide  with  the  hour  for  recess.  The  boys  had 
gone  to  their  homes  for  lunch  and  I  found  in  the  schoolhouse 
only  one  youngster  who  had  probably  been  kept  in  for  some 
delinquency  and  who  was  well  pleased  to  have  his  loneliness 
broken  in  upon  by  a  visitor.  I  did  not  venture  my  name  but 
simply  said  that,  being  detained  for  a  time,  I  wanted  to  see 
what  kind  of  a  schoolhouse  there  was  in  the  village,  and  then 
I  looked  about  over  the  old  desks  carved  with  many  clumsily 
outlined  initials  among  which  I  was  able  to  identify  my  own, 
and  I  saw  that  the  plastered  walls  were  more  or  less  dingy 
with  age.  There  was  really  in  the  little  room  hardly  anything 
that  could  fix  the  attention.  The  boy  noticing,  however,  my 
look  about  the  walls,  took  pains  to  call  my  attention  to  a  break 
in  the  plaster  back  of  the  teacher's  desk.  The  broken  place 
was  blackened  and  stood  out  in  contrast  even  with  the  dingi- 
ness  of  the  surrounding  surface.  "Do  you  see  that  blotch?" 
said  the  boy,  "that  was  made  by  the  great  John  Fiske, 
the  historian,  you  know.  He  got  mad  one  day  and  he  just 
stood  up  and  threw  his  inkstand  at  the  teacher.  The  teacher 
dodged  and  the  inkstand  broke  against  the  wall  behind  where 
the  teacher's  head  had  been  and  left  that  black  blotch;  and 
they  did  not  mend  it  at  the  time  and  later  I  was  told  they 
thought  they  would  keep  it  as  a  memory  of  the  great  historian 
to  show  that  he  had  been  in  this  school."  I  was  interested, 
[said  Fiske]  that  my  memory  should  have  been  considered 
sufficiently  important  to  warrant  preserving  a  dirty  wall 


246  Some  English  Friends 

which  ought  to  have  been  renewed  years  before.  I  was  also 
interested  in  the  boy's  narrative  as  an  example  of  the  creation 
of  a  myth.  I  remembered  the  blotch  perfectly  and  had  looked 
at  it  often  from  my  seat  on  the  floor,  wondering  how  it  had 
been  made  and  whether  anybody  had  possibly  thrown  some- 
thing at  the  wall;  but  that  the  old  story  of  Luther  at  the  Wart- 
burg  and  his  interview  with  the  devil  should  have  been  re- 
produced in  this  little  schoolhouse,  and  associated  with  my 
name,  came  to  me  as  a  personal  realization  of  the  necessity 
of  the  human  mind  for  associating  a  story  with  some  individual. 
The  story  may  wander  about  for  a  while  unattached  until  some 
personality  is  within  reach  with  which  it  can  be  connected. 
The  connection  once  made,  the  myth,  which  requires  both  a 
story  and  a  personality,  comes  into  existence.  It  will  continue 
uncontradicted  whatever  may  be  the  later  evidence  as  to  the 
lack  of  foundation,  and  as  to  the  improbability  or  even  impos- 
sibility of  the  person  with  whom  the  incident  is  associated 
ever  having  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  In  that  little  school- 
house  [continued  Fiske  with  some  feeling],  I  was  a  great 
person  and  I  hope  that  the  blotch  on  the  wall  will  continue 
as  long  as  the  youngsters  there  may  remember  that  John 
Fiske  had  belonged  to  their  school. 


Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  I  have  one  personal  reminis- 
cence connected  with  Stevenson,  an  author  whose  name 
has  become  a  world- wide  celebrity  and  in  regard  to  whom 
so  much  has  come  into  print  both  of  remembrance  and  of 
appreciative  criticism. 

I  had  for  a  long  series  of  years  been  first  a  regular 
summer  guest  and  later  one  of  the  two  or  three  American 
members,  of  the  Savile  Club  in  London.  My  first  visits 
to  the  Club  were  made  during  the  late  seventies  or  early 
eighties  when  its  home  was  still  in  Savile  Row.  My 
meeting  with  Stevenson  was,  however,  in  the  later  home 
of  the  Club  in  Piccadilly  where  its  pleasant  rooms  overlook 
the  Green  Park.  The  house  was,  I  am  told,  at  one  time 


Robert  Louis  Stevenson  247 

the  home  of  Lord  Rosebery  to  whom  it  had  come  through 
his  marriage  into  the  Rothschild  family. 

I  happened  to  be  in  London  in  a  winter  month,  prob- 
ably December.  I  remember  that,  while  the  thermometer 
was  not  low,  the  air  had  that  peculiar  heat-absorbing 
capacity  which  an  American,  coming  into  the  damp  winter 
climate  of  London,  finds  so  exacting.  The  Savile  house, 
like  most  buildings  of  its  age  in  London,  had  no  means  of 
being  heated  other  than  by  the  open  fire-places.  When 
the  room  was  free,  the  Yankee  took  the  opportunity  of  the 
closest  possible  contact  with  this  fire-place.  On  the 
evening  in  question,  I  found  in  going  up  after  dinner  into 
the  general  gathering  room,  that  the  fire-place  was  prac- 
tically occupied  by  a  tall  Scotchman.  I  knew  at  once 
that  he  was  a  Scotchman  by  his  accent,  and  his  dress 
presented  a  rather  exaggerated  Scotch  tweed  effect.  I 
was  struck  also  by  the  fact  that  in  distinction  from  the 
usual  evening  dress  of  the  British  gentleman,  the  fire- 
absorbing  interloper  had  held  on  to  a  flannel  travelling 
shirt.  The  general  impression  of  roughness  gave  me  the 
idea  of  affectation.  I  found  that  my  man  was  relating 
to  three  or  four  club  members,  who  assisted  him  in  block- 
ing the  fire  from  the  Yankee,  some  recent  experiences  in 
the  mountains  of  the  Cevennes  where  he  had  had  a 
donkey  for  a  travelling  companion.  He  had  been  in  Lon- 
don for  a  week  or  more  but  he  was  still  taking  pains  to 
carry  the  appearance  of  a  traveller  who  had  had  a  rough 
experience.  He  spoke  with  great  affection  of  the  donkey 
who  for  chumming  purposes  was,  he  contended,  worth 
any  dozen  men.  The  little  pictures  that  he  gave  in  his 
talk  of  the  valleys  and  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Cevennes 
were  certainly  dramatic  and  sufficiently  interesting  to 
listen  to  and  made  me  almost  forget  my  grievance  in  having 
the  narrator's  tweed  between  me  and  the  heat.  I  had,  of 
course,  no  idea  that  I  was  looking  at  and  listening  to,  a 


248  Some  English  Friends 

great  man  or  at  least  a  man  who  was  going  to  become  great. 
If  it  were  only  possible  in  going  through  the  forest  to  know 
in  advance  which  of  the  little  trees  years  later  were  to 
become  the  big  trees,  life  would  be  much  more  interesting, 
while  the  success  of  a  publisher  would  be  assured. 

Walter  Besant  and  the  Authors'  Society.  In  the 
course  of  my  visits  to  England  in  the  early  seventies,  I 
came  into  pleasant  personal  relations  with  Walter  Besant. 
He  was  at  that  time  Secretary  of  the  Palestine  Explora- 
tion Fund.  But  although  he  had  a  varied  knowledge  of 
the  archaeological  work  that  was  being  carried  on  in  Pales- 
tine and  gave  skilled  and  conscientious  labour  to  the 
responsibilities  of  his  post,  he  was  able  to  devote  time  and 
his  literary  abilities  to  the  production  of  literature  which 
was  quite  outside  of  archaeology.  If  Palestine  was  for  a 
time  at  least  his  vocation,  we  must  admit  that  literature 
proved  a  very  important  avocation  for  a  man  who  was 
large  enough  not  to  be  confined  within  any  one  group  of 
interests. 

Besant  had  as  a  young  man  studied  divinity,  but  he  had 
convinced  himself  at  an  early  age  that  his  theology  was 
not  going  to  remain  sufficiently  "sound"  to  warrant  his 
attempting  spiritual  leadership.  In  his  university  work, 
he  had  gained  high  honours  in  mathematics,  but  his 
mathematical  studies  were  later  put  to  one  side  altogether. 
He  was  a  thorough  student  of  French  literature,  but  his 
chief  reputation  as  a  writer  will  rest  upon  his  novels,  the 
strongest  of  which  were  those  that  were  written  in 
co-operation  with  his  friend  James  Rice. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  years,  he  made  a  sufficient 
success  with  his  books  to  be  able  to  resign  the  secretary- 
ship of  the  Palestine  Society.  In  the  years  succeeding,  he 
devoted  a  very  large  measure  of  activity  to  agitation  in 
behalf  of  the  interests  of  what  he  called  the  Literary  Guild. 
He  practically  created  the  Authors'  Society  of  which  he  was 


Walter  Besant  and  the  Authors'  Society    249 

president  until  his  death.  This  society  took  upon  itself 
the  task  of  protecting  the  interests  of  authors  in  their 
dealings  with  the  publishers.  It  gave  to  the  authors  the 
advantage  of  legal  service,  of  experience  in  the  shaping  of 
contracts,  of  counsel  in  regard  to  the  various  channels  in 
which  books  could  be  brought  into  sale  and  methods  by 
which  actual  returns  to  the  authors  could  be  increased. 

There  is  no  question  but  that  this  society  of  authors  has 
done  and  is  doing  a  most  valuable  service.  Authors  have 
had  the  reputation  of  being  ignorant  and  careless  about 
business  arrangements.  The  younger  writers  have  often, 
naturally  enough,  been  so  well  pleased  to  make  a  begin- 
ning in  bringing  their  productions  into  print,  that  they 
were  not  particularly  watchful  about  the  details  of  pub- 
lishing agreements  or  the  risk  that  there  might  be  of  enter- 
ing into  unwise  engagements  covering  future  and  more 
important  productions.  Not  a  few  publishers,  whose 
management  of  their  relations  with  authors  had  been 
unsatisfactory,  were  properly  enough,  under  the  energetic 
action  of  Besant's  society  "brought  to  book"  for  bad 
methods,  and  a  more  precise  and  a  more  efficient  system 
of  shaping  authors'  agreements  and  of  protecting  the 
business  interests  of  the  authors  came  into  force. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  society  laid  itself  open  to  a  good 
deal  of  legitimate  criticism.  Besant,  while  admitting 
frankly  that  he  had  never  had  any  ground  for  dissatis- 
faction with  his  own  publishers  (his  books  were  for  the 
most  part  in  the  hands  of  Chatto  &  Windus),  was  free 
and  sometimes  heedless  in  his  utterances  in  regard  to 
publishing  processes  generally.  As  the  work  of  the 
society  continued,  there  came  to  be  an  increasing  fierce- 
ness of  utterance  and  an  insistence  on  the  necessary  diver- 
gence of  interest  between  publishers  and  authors.  In 
laying  a  large  stress  upon  the  importance  of  securing 
immediate  returns,  Besant  and  his  associates  lost  sight  of 


250  Some  English  Friends 

the  speculative  character  attaching  to  the  publication  not 
only  of  first  books  but  of  all  books.  Besant  contended 
from  time  to  time  that  there  need  be  no  "speculation" 
in  the  business  of  publication.  Under  his  advice,  young 
authors  for  whose  books  no  assured  public  was  waiting, 
undertook,  either  directly  or  through  the  literary  agencies 
that  came  into  rapid  existence  when  the  publishers  began 
to  be  exploited  one  against  the  other,  to  demand  substan- 
tial returns  in  advance  of  publication,  that  is,  before  any 
returns  had  been  secured.  The  old-time  system  of  a 
continued  personal  relation  between  the  publisher  and  his 
group  of  authors  was  largely  undermined.  The  authors 
failed  to  realize,  or  lost  the  understanding  of,  the  cumula- 
tive value  coming  to  books  that  were  grouped  together 
under  one  imprint  and  publishing  arrangement,  so  that 
each  successive  volume  in  the  series  could  help  to  adver- 
tise and  to  make  sale  for  the  earlier  issues.  The  authors 
also  were  led  to  lose  sight  of  the  advantage  to  the  reading 
public  (and  therefore  to  the  books  themselves)  in  having 
their  works  kept  together  in  a  uniform  set.  When  the 
author,  either  directly  or  through  a  literary  agent,  put  his 
book  up  "at  auction"  he  could  occasionally  secure  a 
larger  immediate  payment  than  would  have  come  to  him 
if  the  book  had  been  left  in  the  hands  of  the  publisher  of  his 
earlier  works,  but  he  forfeited  the  advantage  of  having  his 
books  kept  together  as  "works"  and  the  net  returns  for 
any  series  of  years  might  easily  be,  and  in  a  number  of 
instances  were  proved  to  be,  very  much  smaller. 

The  continual  holding  up  to  criticism,  which  sometimes 
became  almost  opprobrious,  of  the  whole  profession  of 
publishers,  had  a  bad  effect,  particularly  upon  the  younger 
writers.  They  came  to  have  an  exaggerated  idea  not  only 
of  their  literary  importance  but  of  their  commercial  value. 
The  use  also  of  literary  agents  not  merely  for  testing  the 
market  for  writers  as  yet  unknown,  but  for  the  continu- 


Walter  Besant  and  the  Authors'  Society    251 

ing  engagements  for  writers  who  were  already  in  satis- 
factory publishing  relations,  meant  that  for  the  support 
of  these  agents  a  substantial  portion  of  the  authorship 
proceeds  of  a  book  must  be  diverted.  The  clever  agent 
secured  a  continuing  commission,  usually  of  ten  per  cent., 
covering  the  returns  from  each  book,  and  this  came  to  him 
with  no  speculation  and  often  as  a  result  of  a  comparatively 
slight  exertion.  If  there  was  any  risk  that  an  author, 
having  been  satisfied  with  the  results  of  the  publishing 
management  of  his  first  book,  or  first  one  or  two  books, 
might  be  tempted  to  remain  in  association  with  such  pub- 
lisher, so  that  the  services  of  the  agent  would  no  longer  be 
required,  it  came  to  be  the  business  interest  of  the  agent 
to  cause  dissatisfaction  so  that  the  relation  could  be 
broken  off.  The  policy  of  the  agent  would  be  to  pull  the 
author  up  by  the  roots,  so  to  speak.  The  agent's  com- 
missions depended  upon  new  arrangements  and  were 
directly  opposed  to  the  policy  of  a  permanent  relation 
between  the  publisher  and  his  authors.  Such  a  result  was, 
of  course,  unsatisfactory  for  the  publishers  generally  and 
particularly  disappointing  for  the  older  men  who  knew 
that  their  management  of  the  business  of  their  clients  had 
been  upright  and  effective.  These  older  publishers  were 
naturally  unwilling  to  go  into  the  market  with  competing 
bids  for  the  later  works  of  authors  whose  earlier  books 
they  had  managed  satisfactorily.  They  also  considered  it 
undignified  and  undesirable  to  be  held  off  at  arm's  length 
by  the  agents  and  prevented  from  maintaining  personal 
relations  with  their  own  authors. 

While  it  was  the  case  that  the  operations  of  the  Authors' 
Society  during  its  first  ten  or  fifteen  years  and  under  the 
management  of  the  rather  fiery  Besant  produced,  as  in- 
dicated, a  full  measure  of  unsatisfactory  results,  it  is  fair 
to  say  that  in  these  later  years,  under  more  conservative 
management  and  with  the  results  of  a  larger  experience, 


252  Some  English  Friends 

there  has  been  a  wiser  and  a  better  policy.  Authors  who 
have  been  abused,  or  who  believed  themselves  to  be  abused, 
can  today  secure  at  a  moderate  cost  the  service  of  the 
counsel  of  the  Society  in  representing  their  grievances, 
but  there  is  much  less  pressure  on  the  part  of  the  managers 
of  the  Society  in  counselling  authors  to  make  large  de- 
mands for  "profits"  that  are  not  yet  earned  and  that  may 
never  be  earned.  A  number  of  the  younger  writers  have 
come  to  realize  that  their  unwarranted  demands  have 
stood  in  the  way  of  securing  a  fair  start  for  their  literary 
operations.  The  more  experienced  authors  have  come  to 
understand  the  inevitable  speculative  character  inherent 
in  all  publishing  undertakings.  The  publishers  who  have, 
under  the  pressure  of  competition,  bound  themselves  to 
make  larger  payments  for  a  book  than  could  be  offset  by 
the  sales,  naturally  come  to  be  not  only  conservative  but 
possibly  unduly  pessimistic  in  regard  to  future  similar 
volumes.  There  is  never  any  permanent  advantage  to  a 
worker,  whether  he  be  a  producer  of  literature  or  a  layer 
of  bricks,  in  securing  for  some  first  piece  of  labour  more 
than  it  has  actually  earned.  If  the  worker  is  a  "going 
concern,"  that  is  to  say  if  he  expects  to  go  on  with  his  pro- 
duction either  of  books  or  of  bricks,  he  will  realize  very 
soon  that  a  first  piece  of  over-exactingness  on  his  part  must 
stand  in  the  way  of  his  future  success.  In  fact,  not  merely 
will  he  have  to  repay  the  amount  that  has  been  overpaid 
for  his  first  production,  but  the  doubt  that  comes  into  the 
mind  of  the  dealers  with  whom  he  conies  into  relation,  as 
to  the  actual  value  of  his  product,  may  easily  bring  him  for 
his  later  productions  a  smaller  return  than  they  would  on 
their  own  merits  have  been  entitled  to. 

I  used  to  visit  Besant  from  season  to  season  at  his 
pleasant  home  in  Hampstead.  I  was  one  of  the  publishers 
whom  he  held  in  personal  regard,  and  while  he  would 
through  me  abuse  the  guild  as  a  whole,  he  was  ready  from 


Walter  Besant  and  the  Authors'  Society    253 

time  to  time  to  give  attention  to  my  explanations  as  to  the 
necessary  losses  in  the  publishing  business  caused  by  the 
impossibility  of  deciding  in  advance  what  the  extent  of 
the  public  interest  in  a  book  might  be.  I  pointed  out  to 
him  again  and  again  that  the  loss  on  the  books  that  did  not 
sell  was  part  of  the  necessary  cost  of  carrying  on  the  pub- 
lishing business.  It  was  an  essential  factor  in  deciding 
what  could  be  paid  for,  and  what  could  be  earned  by,  the 
books  that  did  sell.  Even  if  the  publisher  should  be 
eliminated  and  the  authors  should  undertake,  as  various 
authors'  associations  had  undertaken,  to  bring  their  books 
directly  before  the  public,  this  factor  of  cost  could  not  be 
eliminated.  Either  the  payments  made  to  authors  of  the 
more  successful  books  must  be  lessened  by  the  losses  on 
the  unsuccessful  books  or  the  publishing  capital  would 
disappear.  Besant  would  for  a  while  accept  such  state- 
ments with  the  evidence  that  I  was  able  to  put  before  him, 
but  the  next  day  his  mind  would  go  back  curiously  to  the 
point  at  which  we  had  first  started  our  conversation.  He 
was  a  very  difficult  man  upon  whom  to  make  a  permanent 
impression.  He  came  finally  to  have,  I  think,  what  I 
should  call  an  obsession  in  regard  to  the  earnings  of  litera- 
ture. By  "  literature ' '  he  usually  meant  fiction.  He  never 
realized  that  there  was  a  limit  to  the  absorbing  power  of 
the  public  even  for  fiction  which  had  a  right  to  exist.  The 
talk  for  which  the  Authors'  Society  was  responsible  about 
the  possible  earnings  of  novelists  had  had  as  one  result  the 
tempting  of  too  many  people  into  the  work  of  producing 
stories  so  that  the  market  was  frequently  overstocked. 

Apart  from  his  obsession,  Besant  was  a  lovable,  warm- 
hearted man  and  a  loyal  and  attractive  friend.  I  knew 
him  not  only  in  his  home  but  in  the  Savile  Club  of  which 
he  had,  I  believe  from  the  beginning  of  the  Club's  existence, 
been  an  influential  member.  I  pointed  out  from  time  to 
time  that  he  ought  to  have  secured  an  experience  of  some 


254  Some  English  Friends 

years  in  a  publishing  office,  and  I  tried  to  tempt  him  to 
utilize  some  of  the  strenuous  members  of  the  Authors' 
Society  for  the  establishing  of  an  authors'  publishing 
concern.  I  remain  of  the  opinion  that  in  no  other  way 
can  authors  secure  so  trustworthy  an  understanding  of 
the  actual  conditions  under  which  books  can  be  sold  and 
of  the  proper  basis  for  the  division  between  those  con- 
cerned of  the  proceeds  (when  there  be  any  proceeds)  from 
such  sales. 

I  had  the  privilege  of  being  present,  usually  as  a  guest 
of  Besant,  at  several  of  the  annual  dinners  of  the  Authors' 
Club.  I  recall  at  one  of  these  dinners  a  talk  by  Lowell 
which  impressed  me  as  of  a  higher  level  than  the  Authors' 
Club  often  had  the  opportunity  of  listening  to.  Lowell 
was  speaking  of  the  impression  made  upon  him  of  the 
spirit  and  life  of  the  great  city  of  London,  and  his  hearers 
came  to  feel  that  they  had  before  them  a  picture  not  of  a 
community  of  six  millions  of  people,  but  of  a  great  com- 
posite creation  that  had  gradually  been  evolved  through 
the  growth  of  generations  of  Britains  until  it  stood  today 
for  something  vastly  manifold,  carrying  in  its  bosom  a 
wonderful  record  of  the  past  and  the  seeds  of  a  great 
history  to  come. 

I  was  called  upon  from  time  to  time  at  these  dinners  to 
present  the  American  point  of  view  in  regard  to  the  work 
of  authors,  or  their  relations  with  publishers,  or  to  give 
some  statement  in  regard  to  the  probable  changes  in  the 
copyright  law  of  the  United  States. 

The  British  authors  were,  in  the  late  eighties  and  early 
nineties,  beginning  to  realize  how  important  for  their 
property  interest  was  the  circle  of  possible  readers  in  the 
United  States.  I  took  advantage  of  one  of  these  opportu- 
nities to  make  announcement  to  the  assembled  authors 
that  the  publishers  had  for  some  years  had  in  preparation 
a  historical  work  which  was  to  present  a  record  of  the  sins 


Walter  Besant  and  the  Authors'  Society    255 

of  authors  from  the  time  of  Martial  down  to  the  present 
day. 

The  publication  of  the  work  had,  as  I  explained,  been 
delayed  only  because  the  material  that  was  being  col- 
lected from  various  sources  had  increased  so  enormously 
upon  the  hands  of  the  committee  that  had  the  book  in 
charge.  The  picture  that  I  drew  of  the  villainies  of  the 
literary  craft  was  a  very  black  one  indeed.  I  pointed  out 
that  from  the  earliest  times  in  which  authors  had  come  to 
publishers  to  secure  the  help  needed  to  bring  their  pro- 
ductions before  the  public,  the  publishers  had  been  the 
sufferers  not  only  from  the  over-confidence  and  optimism 
of  these  authors,  but  from  their  exactions,  their  ingratitude, 
and  their  lack  of  integrity.  The  moneys  that  had  been 
secured  by  authors  without  consideration,  that  is  to  say 
for  work  that  was  never  delivered,  or  never  completed ;  the 
advances  paid  for  books  which  were  to  sell  by  the  millions 
and  which  had  never  reached  the  thousands;  the  loans, 
the  security  for  which  was  presented  in  the  shape  of 
manuscripts  of  no  commercial  value ;  the  contracts  signed 
and  disregarded  either  because  of  fitfulness  of  plan  or 
because  some  other  undertaking  gave  temptation  of  more 
immediate  returns;  these  actions  and  relations  constituted 
together  a  most  formidable  aggregate  of  crimes  and  mis- 
deeds. And,  I  proceeded,  it  was  considered  important  for 
emphasizing  the  indictment  against  literary  workers  and 
for  securing  a  prospect  of  some  improvement  in  methods 
for  the  future,  that  the  record  should  be  brought  down 
"to  the  present  time."  I  could  not  but  feel  that  a  tremor 
passed  through  the  audience  as  I  spoke.  In  fact,  I  knew 
that  there  were  at  that  time  present  one  or  two  of  my  own 
authors  who  had  failed  to  fulfil  contracts  with  me  dating 
back  a  number  of  years.  I  admitted  that  there  were 
cases  in  which  publishers  also  had  been  heedless  of  their 
trust  and  had  not  been  ready  to  carry  out  in  full  their 


256  Some  English  Friends 

obligations  under  contracts,  but  I  said,  here  is  an  Authors' 
Society  ready  and  eager  to  take  immediate  action  in  case 
of  such  malfeasance,  but  the  publishers  have  never  been  so 
brutal  as  to  attempt  to  force  authors  to  the  fulfilment  of 
their  engagements.  My  talk  was,  of  course,  given  in  fun, 
but  I  felt  then,  and  I  maintain  now,  that  it  was  based  upon 
a  substantial  measure  of  historic  truth. 

Sir  Thomas  Farrer.  Sometime  in  the  eighties  I  had  a 
pleasant  week-end  at  the  beautiful  country  home  of  Sir 
Thomas  Farrer,  who  a  few  years  later,  became  Lord 
Fairer.  Sir  Thomas  was  a  clear-headed  student  of  applied 
economics.  For  a  long  series  of  years  he  was  kept  at  the 
head  of  the  Board  of  Trade  and  his  counsel  was,  as  I 
understood,  utilized  by  administrations  of  both  political 
parties.  He  had  made  various  visits  to  the  States  and  had 
an  intelligent  understanding  of  American  conditions,  par- 
ticularly of  those  obtaining  in  New  England. 

I  had  met  him  in  New  York,  I  think,  at  one  of  the  early 
meetings  of  our  Free-Trade  Club  where  we  secured  from 
our  English  guest  a  clearly  presented  statement  of  the 
business  foundations  of  England's  prosperity.  He  had 
asked  me  to  report  myself  to  him  when  I  was  again  in 
England,  and  I  was  glad  to  secure  another  impression  of  a 
man  whose  character  and  knowledge  counted  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic. 

I  forget  for  the  moment  the  name  of  his  country  home, 
but  I  have  memory  of  an  extensive  mansion,  the  origin  of 
which  went  back  a  century  or  two  and  which  contained 
among  other  beautiful  things  a  curiously  carved  oak  stair- 
case. I  had  arrived  in  time  to  meet  a  part  of  the  family  at 
tea,  including  Lady  Farrer  and  the  son  who  is  now  (1915) 
Lord  Fairer,  but  who  was  then  an  attractive  youngster. 
I  had  been  steered  to  my  room  by  an  attendant  who  had 
been  assigned  to  me,  but  I  had  not  been  careful  enough  to 
take  bearings  as  to  the  route.  In  returning  downstairs 


William  Blackmore  257 

after  dressing,  I  found  on  my  way  down  that  I  had  for- 
gotten a  handkerchief  and,  starting  to  go  back,  I  realized 
that  I  had  failed  to  take  note  of  the  position  or  specifica- 
tion of  my  room  and  that  I  was  practically  astray  in  the 
great  building.  Fortunately  I  ran  across  the  young  man 
of  the  house  and  in  expressing  my  relief  at  meeting  him,  I 
said  that  when  Yankees  found  themselves  perplexed  in  a 
route,  it  was  their  habit  "to  blaze  the  way"  and  that  I 
was  about  to  begin  on  the  staircase.  The  youngster  had 
read  his  Cooper  and  knew  what  "blazing  the  way"  meant. 
He  said  nothing  for  the  moment  and  looked  up  the  house- 
keeper who  had  me  steered  in  the  proper  direction;  but  I 
learned  later  that  he  had  told  his  mother  that  that  Yankee 
was  a  dangerous  man  to  have  in  the  house  because  he  was 
about  to  chop  notches  with  an  axe,  or  perhaps  even  with  a 
tomahawk,  on  the  big  staircase. 

William  Blackmore.  In  1889,  I  had  the  opportunity, 
or  rather  I  made  the  opportunity,  of  coming  into  relations 
with  the  author  of  Lorna  Doone.  At  that  time  he  made 
his  home  on  the  Thames  near  Teddington  Lock  where  he 
carried  on  a  fruit  farm.  It  is  my  memory  that  I  took  a 
note  of  introduction  from  one  of  Blackmore's  old-time 
chess  opponents.  For  a  series  of  years,  the  novelist  held 
a  good  position  in  the  second  group  of  the  chess-players  of 
England  and  had  won  his  fair  share  of  successes  in  county 
chess  tournaments. 

I  found  the  novelist,  with  implements  in  hand,  busy 
among  his  grape-vines.  He  was  classed  in  England  as  a 
gentleman  farmer,  but  he  was  both  ready  and  able  to  do 
with  his  own  hands  a  large  part  of  the  work  that  was  re- 
quired for  the  cultivation  of  his  grapes,  nectarines,  and 
pears.  The  "farm"  covered,  if  I  remember  rightly,  only 
about  twenty  acres,  but  the  ground  had  been  developed 
under  intensive  cultivation,  and  with  a  clever  use  of  brick 
walls  for  securing  the  fullest  advantage  of  the  rather  fitful 

17 


258  Some  English  Friends 

English  sun,  in  such  manner  that  the  annual  fruit  crop  was 
most  luxurious. 

The  old  gentleman  gave  me  a  very  cordial  welcome  and 
took  me  to  his  piazza,  where  with  a  pretty  view  of  the 
Thames  we  had  afternoon  coffee  with  the  additional 
luxury  of  exquisite  nectarines.  Realizing  that  this 
beautiful  fruit  was  being  produced  at  a  small  comparative 
expenditure,  that  is  under  the  hands  of  the  actual  owner,  I 
assumed  that  the  operation  must  be  quite  remunerative 
and  I  congratulated  my  host  on  being  within  easy  reach 
of  Co  vent  Garden,  the  most  extravagant  fruit  market  of 
the  world.  His  reply  came  with  a  groan:  "Yes,"  he  said, 
"the  fruit  is  good  and  the  London  buyers  certainly  pay 
for  it  a  high  price,  but  I  must  admit  that  when  at  the  end 
of  the  year  I  make  up  my  farm  books,  I  find  that  the  net 
result  is  a  deficiency  instead  of  a  profit.  I  then  have  to 
turn  to  and  write  a  new  story  with  which  to  meet  the 
losses  on  the  growing  of  the  fruit." 

Blackmore  in  his  home  in  Devonshire  had  had  early 
experience  in  fruit  farming,  but  after  his  return  from  the 
university  (he  took  his  degree  in  Exeter  College,  Oxford) 
he  began  work  as  a  solicitor.  His  first  stories  were  pro- 
duced during  the  intervals  of  his  law  work.  I  understood 
that  he  had  made  a  good  beginning  for  a  successful  career, 
but  his  medical  adviser  ordered  him  to  break  away  from 
office  confinement  and  from  the  town  with  the  word  that 
his  years  could  be  prolonged  only  if  he  would  make  his 
life  in  the  open  air.  It  was  then  that  he  utilized  his  early 
training  by  going  back  to  fruit  farming  and  it  was  in  the 
country  that  he  found  a  leisure  and  inspiration  for  con- 
tinued literary  work. 

I  spoke  with  appreciation  of  Lorna  Doone,  the  book  by 
which  he  was  best  known  to  American  readers,  and  ex- 
pressed the  hope  that  the  large  sales  of  the  book  in  the 
States  had  brought  some  returns  to  the  author.  The  re- 


William  Blackmore  259 

sponse was  another  groan:  "Yes,"  he  said,  "Lorna  remains 
my  favourite.  I  feel  as  if  this  particular  heroine  were  a 
member  of  my  own  home  circle.  I  am  glad  that  she  should 
have  found  favour  with  the  readers  on  the  far  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  but  these  readers  have  paid  no  pennies  to  the 
author  of  Lorna  Doone."  I  was  surprised  at  this  report 
because  the  American  edition  had  been  issued  by  one  of 
the  leading  publishing  houses,  and  while  the  publication 
had  been  made  some  years  in  advance  of  the  international 
copyright  agreement,  I  had  assumed  that  under  the  rou- 
tine then  in  force  with  the  more  important  of  the  American 
publishers,  some  substantial  honorarium  had  been  paid 
to  the  author. 

I  suggested  that  my  own  firm  would  be  pleased  to  issue 
an  authorized  American  edition  of  Lorna  Doone.  I  pro- 
posed, although  we  could  of  course  have  no  control  of  the 
market  and  would  have  to  meet  the  competition  of  the 
several  unauthorized  issues,  to  pay  the  author  a  royalty 
on  the  copies  sold.  I  proposed  further,  payment  for  an 
introduction  in  which  the  author  should  give  a  special 
message  to  his  American  readers.  He  gave  a  cordial 
acceptance  to  the  suggestion,  and  in  the  year  following  my 
firm  published  the  first  authorized  American  edition,  and 
the  most  artistically  printed  edition,  of  a  romance  that 
has  been  accepted  as  an  English  classic.  We  were  able, 
notwithstanding  the  difficulty  of  competition,  to  make  for 
a  couple  of  years  satisfactory  returns  to  the  author  for  the 
sales.  A  year  or  two  later,  however,  Blackmore  was  per- 
suaded by  the  publishing  house  which  had  issued  the  book 
without  authorization,  and  which  had  made  with  their 
original  issue  no  recognition  of  the  author's  rights,  to  pre- 
pare for  them,  for  some  sufficiently  tempting  considera- 
tion, an  introduction  for  a  later  printing  of  their  edition. 
This  secured  for  the  earlier  "piracy"  edition  a  standing  as 
now  issued  with  the  approval  of  the  author  and  not  only 


260  Some  English  Friends 

interfered  with  the  sales  of  the  Putnam  issue  but  gave  a 
certain  validity  to  the  claim  that  this  earlier  edition  re- 
presented the  exclusive  authorization  of  the  author. 

I  continued  to  go  to  Teddington  from  year  to  year  for  a 
game  of  chess  and  a  bunch  of  grapes,  and  in  first  seeing  my 
author  after  this  transaction,  I  naturally  gave  a  friendly 
growl  at  his  ill-advised  proceeding.  It  is  my  impression, 
however,  that  he  had  no  understanding  of  having  done 
anything  that  was  either  unfair  or  unwise.  At  that  time 
his  years  were  beginning  to  tell  and  his  judgment  was  no 
longer  clear  or  incisive.  I  realized  the  change  in  connection 
with  my  annual  game  of  chess.  At  the  outset  he  had 
beaten  me  without  difficulty,  but  when  I  won  three  games 
in  succession,  he  closed  the  board  with  the  word:  "My 
chess  days  are  over.  I  cannot  look  forward  more  than 
three  moves." 

Leslie  Stephen.  I  have  mentioned  in  connection  with 
the  reference  to  the  National  Dictionary  of  Biography  the 
name  of  Leslie  Stephen.  Stephen's  editorial  work  for 
the  Dictionary  was  judicious  and  effective,  but  his 
individual  fame  rests,  of  course,  upon  a  very  different  series 
of  undertakings. 

My  firm  arranged  with  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.  to  take  over 
for  publication  in  the  States  the  successive  productions 
of  Stephen.  These  books,  not  suited  for,  and  never  secur- 
ing, a  popular  sale,  belong,  of  course,  to  the  highest  class  of 
literature,  and  have  exercised,  and  must  continue  to  exer- 
cise, an  influence  in  intellectual  circles  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic. 

In  first  meeting  Stephen,  I  had  not  failed  to  bear  in 
mind  with  cordial  appreciation  the  loyal  service  rendered 
by  him  during  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  to  the  cause  of 
the  North.  In  the  years  between  1861  and  1865  he  stood 
almost  alone  in  Cambridge  in  maintaining  that  the  men 
who  were  fighting  for  the  existence  of  the  Republic  were  in 


Edward  A.  Freeman  261 

the  right  and  would  prevail.  I  have  made  reference  in  an 
earlier  volume  to  the  clever  analysis  that  Stephen  brought 
into  print  in  September,  1865,  of  the  long  series  of  mislead- 
ing, not  to  say  lying,  articles  for  which  during  these 
years  the  Times,  under  the  leadership  of  John  Delane,  was 
responsible. 

Stephen  was  a  man  who  possessed  a  real  capacity  for 
friendship  and  strong  social  instincts.  In  the  sympathetic 
memoir  written  by  Maitland,  description  is  given  of 
the  Sunday  Walking  Club  initiated  by  Stephen  and  the 
operations  of  it  during  a  long  series  of  years.  One  of  the 
members  of  this  club  was  Stephen's  near  friend  George 
Meredith.  The  association  of  the  two  men  in  their  later 
years  became  difficult  because  of  the  increasing  deafness  of 
each.  I  recall  being  at  a  dinner  given  in  Meredith's  cot- 
tage at  Box  Hill  at  which  were  present  Stephen,  W.  S. 
Lilly,  W.  A.  Bell,  and  myself.  Stephen  and  Meredith  had 
opposite  ends  of  the  table  and  neither  could  hear  anything 
that  the  other  was  saying.  Each,  however,  when  noticing 
the  movement  of  the  lips  of  the  other,  would  stop  talking, 
and  then  we  could  not  get  a  word  from  either.  We  did,  of 
course,  what  we  could  to  transmit  the  words  of  the  two 
men  across  the  table,  but  the  barrier  was  evidently  a 
serious  one,  and  for  men  with  such  faculty  for  social  inter- 
course must  have  been  a  cause  of  sadness. 

Edward  A.  Freeman.  In  the  early  eighties,  I  found 
myself  a  member  of  a  committee  which  had  invited  the 
historian  Freeman  to  g've  a  course  of  lectures  in  New 
York,  and  which  had  assumed  the  financial  responsibility 
for  a  minimum  compensation  to  the  lecturer.  He  was  to 
receive  as  much  beyond  this  minimum  as  the  returns  from 
the  tickets  might  warrant.  The  historian's  name  was  well 
known  in  the  cultivated  circles  of  the  city,  and  for  the 
first  lecture  the  hall  was  amply  filled.  The  audience  found 
itself,  however,  keenly  disappointed  with  both  the  matter 


262  Some  English  Friends 

and  the  manner  of  the  lecturer.  Freeman  could  not  get 
over  the  impression,  shared  by  more  than  one  English 
lecturer,  that  his  audience  was  made  up,  if  not  of  youngsters, 
at  least  of  hearers  whose  mental  capacities  were  still 
immature.  He  presented  a  few  rather  elementary  state- 
ments as  to  the  coming  of  the  Pilgrims  to  New  England, 
and  explained  to  the  hearers,  the  majority  of  whom  were 
descendants  from  these  same  New  Englanders  and  were, 
of  course,  perfectly  familiar  with  their  family  history,  how 
some  of  the  Pilgrims  had  come  to  Massachusetts  direct 
from  England,  or,  as  he  put  it,  "in  one  pull,"  while  others 
had  come  to  us  by  way  of  Holland,  that  is  to  say,  "in  two 
pulls."  Having  made  this  great  point  clear,  he  repeated 
it  with  no  very  great  difference  of  language,  and  there  was 
very  little  else  in  the  lecture.  On  the  second  night  the  hall 
was  half  filled,  and  on  the  third  we  had  but  a  scant  hand- 
ful of  hearers.  When  the  third  lecture  was  over,  I,  in  my 
capacity  as  committeeman,  took  the  historian  to  the 
Century  Club  where  hospitality  had  been  secured  for  him. 
I  do  not  know  which  of  the  two  men  was  the  crosser  during 
our  brief  walk.  The  historian  had  convinced  himself  that 
New  York  City  was  absolutely  unappreciative  of  his 
scholarship  and  of  his  ability  as  a  lecturer,  while  his  com- 
panion was  oppressed  with  the  thought  of  the  financial 
deficiency  that  would  have  to  be  met  by  his  committee. 
The  method  of  Freeman's  delivery  was  unattractive. 
The  voice  was  harsh  and  the  enunciation  thick,  while  at 
the  close  of  the  sentence,  the  speaker  would  often  permit 
his  voice  to  fall  so  that  the  hearer  would  lose  the  final  and 
conclusive  word.  I  recalled  at  the  time  a  similar  difficulty 
in  the  case  of  Matthew  Arnold,  who  also  failed  to  win 
success  with  American  audiences.  It  is  a  truism,  of  course, 
to  point  out  that  learning  or  wide  information,  even  when 
accompanied  as  in  the  case  of  Arnold  by  grace  of  thought 
and  charm  of  expression,  are  not  in  themselves  sufficient 


Edward  A.  Freeman  263 

to  enable  a  lecturer  to  come  into  sympathetic  and  effective 
relations  with  his  hearers.  He  must  have  a  voice,  and 
he  must  have  some  knowledge  how  to  use  his  voice.  One 
might  as  well  expect  a  man  to  be  a  successful  swordsman 
who  had  never  secured  any  training  in  the  use  of  his 
weapon.  Since  the  date  of  Arnold  and  of  Freeman,  Eng- 
lish platform  speaking  has,  I  believe,  very  much  improved. 
England  has  in  each  generation  produced  great  orators 
and  not  a  few  effective  speakers.  English  audiences  have, 
however,  shown  much  more  patience,  whether  before  the 
pulpit  or  in  front  of  the  political  hustings,  or  around  a 
table  at  a  public  dinner,  with  clumsy  and  ineffective 
utterances  than  would  ever  have  been  possible  on  the  part 
of  similar  American  gatherings,  and  the  speaking  in  the 
United  States  on  the  part,  not  of  the  great  men,  but  of 
the  men  of  ordinary  attainments  and  with  qualities  not  of 
the  highest  range,  has  certainly  been  on  the  average  more 
graceful  and  more  effective  than  could  be  listened  to  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Mr.  Freeman  must  have  forgiven  his  committeeman 
because  I  find  record  later  of  pleasant  hospitality  extended 
to  me  in  his  University  home  on  St.  Giles  in  Oxford  and 
in  his  charming  country  place  Somerleaze,  near  Wells. 
In  staying  with  him  at  Oxford,  it  was  my  habit  to  go  with 
the  two  home  daughters,  most  loyal  and  charming  women, 
to  the  Professor's  lectures.  These  lectures,  it  is  fair  to 
remember,  contained  really  important  material,  but  the 
delivery  was  not  graceful  or  effective,  and  as  the  lecturer 
had,  with  a  curious  perversity,  nearly  always  selected 
subjects  which  were  entirely  out  of  touch  with  the  require- 
ments of  the  examiners  in  the  schools,  the  undergraduates 
were  not  interested  in  making  time  for  them.  They  could 
not  be  made  to  count  for  honours.  It  was,  therefore,  im- 
portant for  the  daughters  and  myself  to  be  present  to  swell 
an  audience  which  comprised  in  all  but  a  handful  of  persons. 


264  Some  English  Friends 

I  noticed  that  at  times  Freeman's  great  beard  of  a  dis- 
tinctive reddish  yellow  tint  was  irregular  in  its  cut.  The 
daughters  explained  that  this  was  usually  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  father  did  his  work  in  the  evening  between  two 
candles,  and  that  as  he  became  sleepy,  he  would  nod  first 
to  one  side  and  then  to  the  other.  The  beard,  catching  fire 
in  one  of  the  candles,  naturally  did  not  always  burn  evenly, 
and  it  was  important,  therefore,  for  the  daughters  to  take 
charge  in  the  morning  of  the  clipping  needed  to  restore  the 
equilibrium.  I  was  told  later  in  Oriel,  where  Freeman  was 
for  many  years  a  valued  Fellow,  that  on  a  Christmas  fes- 
tivity he  had  taken  charge  of  the  important  duty  of  the 
ignition  of  the  plum  pudding.  He  poured  the  spirit  over 
the  pudding,  and  then  burying  his  beard  in  the  great  dish, 
succeeded  in  setting  fire  to  pudding  and  beard  together. 

I  remember  a  dinner  at  Oriel  on  a  Sunday  evening  in 
June.  The  hospitality  of  Oriel  was  proverbial,  and  at  this 
time  of  the  year  there  were  nearly  always  guests  from 
outside.  The  principal  guest  on  this  day  was  the  historian 
Taine.  There  were  also  present  one  or  two  Oriel  fellows 
who  were  in  Oxford  for  a  visit,  of  whom  the  most  note- 
worthy was  James  Bryce.  The  provost  Monro  presided. 
Taine,  seated,  naturally,  at  Monro's  right,  asked  his  host 
whether  he  might  carry  on  his  conversation  in  French,  and 
Monro,  whose  French  was  fluent,  though  rather  Scotch  in 
tone,  said,  "without  question,  if  it  was  more  convenient." 
Mr.  Bryce's  French  was  also  ready  and  expressive,  and 
Freeman  who  sat  opposite,  next  to  Bryce,  must  himself 
have  possessed  a  working  knowledge  of  the  language.  He 
was  at  this  time,  however,  a  little  deaf,  while  it  is  possible 
also  that  he  was  less  familiar  with  the  language  as  spoken 
today  than  with  the  Norman  French  of  earlier  centuries. 
Some  reference  was  made  to  Victor  Hugo  and  to  the  great 
range  of  Hugo's  knowledge.  This  aroused  Taine's  criti- 
cism. "  Hugo,  an  authority !"  said  Taine,  "why,  his  igno- 


Edward  A.  Freeman  265 

ranee  was  colossal.  He  was  a  cyclopaedia  of  ignorance." 
Taine  then  went  on  to  speak  with  admiration  of  Thierry, 
the  great  French  authority  on  the  Norman  conquest,  and 
he  naturally  addressed  his  remarks  towards  Freeman. 
Freeman  bowed  solemnly  from  time  to  time  as  if  in  assent, 
but,  as  I  learned  afterwards,  without  having  taken  in  what 
the  Frenchman  was  saying.  Later,  as  we  went  out  to  the 
common  room  for  the  coffee,  I  took  a  mischievous  pleasure 
in  asking  Freeman  whether  he  accepted  Taine's  views  on 
the  work  of  Thierry.  My  host  at  once  became  quite 
excited.  "What,"  he  said,  "Thierry  an  authority!  He 
never  had  more  than  the  most  superficial  knowledge  of  the 
subject.  Thierry's  work  based  upon  the  latest  discoveries ! 
Why,  the  man  never  knew  enough  to  interpret  a  manu- 
script of  the  eleventh  century  and  did  not  have  the  under- 
standing even  to  utilize  the  interpretation  of  others." 
"Well,  sir,"  I  said,  "Monsieur  Taine  is  returning  to  Paris 
with  the  belief  that  the  English  authority  on  the  Norman 
conquest  is  entirely  in  accord  with  his  views  and  his  high 
appreciation  of  Thierry."  "I  must  correct  him,"  said 
Freeman,  hurrying  his  steps  towards  the  common  room  for 
the  purpose.  As  we  entered,  Taine,  who  was  obliged  to 
take  an  early  train  back  to  London,  was  putting  on  his 
cloak  with  the  aid  of  his  attendant.  He  sees  Freeman 
coming  across  the  room  hurriedly  at  him,  and  assuming 
at  once  that  it  is  merely  for  a  farewell  greeting,  puts  out 
both  his  hands  and  overwhelms  the  Englishman  with  a 
flood  of  voluble  and  graceful  adieus  in  French.  Freeman 
has  no  opportunity  to  get  in  a  word  edgewise,  and  Taine 
bows  himself  out  confident  that  he  has  made  a  satisfactory 
impression  on  the  English  historian  and  delighted  that 
Freeman  does  not  question  the  authority  or  the  value  of 
his  rival  Thierry.  Freeman  devoted  a  valuable  half -hour 
in  the  evening  to  a  lecture  given  to  his  daughters  and  to 
myself  on  the  inadequacies  of  Thierry. 


266  Some  English  Friends 

Freeman's  fierceness  as  a  controversialist  is  a  matter  of 
record;  but  I  want  to  bear  testimony  to  the  charm  and 
consideration  of  his  service  as  a  host.  I  remember  one  day 
devoted  to  a  visit  to  the  ruins  of  Glastonbury,  to  which 
he  had  steered  me  from  the  home  at  Somerleaze.  I  had  all 
to  myself  a  most  charming  and  instructive  lecture  on  the 
history  of  the  ruins  and  on  the  purport  of  the  great  series 
of  legends  that  had  gathered  about  the  ruins.  On  another 
day  I  was  one  of  an  audience  of  two,  the  other  being  Lord 
Arthur  Hervey,  the  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  to  whom 
he  gave  a  most  instructive  lecture  on  the  history  of  the 
Cathedral. 

We  had  for  some  years  had  a  contract  in  force  with  Free- 
man for  the  preparation  for  the  Putnam  series  of  Story  of 
the  Nations  of  a  volume  on  Sicily.  Freeman  had  explained 
to  me  that  the  history  of  Sicily  was  the  key  to  the  history 
of  the  Mediterranean,  with  which  was  bound  up  through 
long  series  of  centuries  the  development  of  Europe.  Our 
book  had  gone  on  very  slowly  indeed,  and  all  that  I  was 
able  to  secure  in  going  to  our  author  from  June  to  June 
was  the  report  that  the  work  was  still  in  train.  On  one 
June,  however,  the  report  took  a  little  different  shape.  In 
looking  up  the  material  for  my  volume,  Freeman  had 
become  so  much  impressed  with  the  importance  of  the 
subject  for  the  elucidation,  as  said,  of  the  history  of  Europe, 
that  he  put  before  the  Clarendon  Press  a  plan  for  a  com- 
prehensive work  devoted  to  Sicily.  He  realized,  however, 
that  under  his  contract  with  me  he  was  not  free  to  produce 
another  history  of  Sicily  until  my  book  was  out  of  the  way, 
and  even  then  not  without  the  assent  of  the  Putnams.  I 
said  at  once  that  irrespective  of  any  business  advantage  to 
itself,  my  firm  would  not  be  willing  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  carrying  out  of  a  scholarly  undertaking  such  as  that  in 
plan.  I  emphasized,  however,  the  desirability  of  getting 
our  little  book  cleared  out  of  the  way  without  further 


Edward  A.  Freeman  267 

delay.  A  year  later  I  was  told  that  this  course  had  not 
proved  practicable.  The  historian  explained  that  it  was 
necessary  to  take  up  each  epoch  for  itself.  He  showed  me  a 
little  table  on  which  rested  the  few  sheets  of  a  modest 
looking  little  manuscript  that  comprised  the  material  for 
my  small  volume,  and  a  great  big  table  carrying  a  large 
mass  of  manuscript  which  was  being  shaped  for  the 
Clarendon  Press  volume.  Freeman  explained  that  as  he 
wrote  a  chapter  for  the  larger  work,  he  would  write  out  a 
page  and  place  it  on  the  manuscript  belonging  to  me.  I 
realized  that  under  this  method  of  procedure  a  good  many 
years  would  elapse  before  my  volume  was  completed,  and, 
realizing  the  justice  of  my  renewed  complaint,  the  historian 
finally  did  divert  himself  from  the  main  theme  of  his 
narrative  and  completed  the  final  chapters  of  my  volume 
in  time  to  do  the  last  proofreading  just  before  his  fatal 
illness  in  Alicante.  The  managers  of  the  Clarendon  Press 
were  obliged  after  the  historian's  death  to  make  a  second 
application  to  the  Putnams.  We  placed  at  their  disposal 
the  final  chapters  of  our  smaller  history,  which  chapters 
were  expanded  by  some  literary  worker  so  as  to  enable  the 
sixth  volume  of  the  great  history  to  be  brought  into  print. 
In  the  latter  part  of  1863,  the  historian  Freeman  brought 
into  publication  a  study  of  government  issued  under  the 
title  of:  History  of  Federal  Government  from  the  Organi- 
zation of  the  Achaian  League  to  the  Disruption  of  the 
American  Republic.  It  was  the  author's  expectation  to 
have  the  second  volume  in  read  ness  a  year  or  two  later. 
According  to  the  literary  gossip  of  the  time,  the  continua- 
tion of  the  work  was  prevented  by  the  annoyance  on  the 
part  of  its  author  that  the  American  Republic  had  refused 
to  stay  "disrupted."  Freeman  belonged  to  the  Liberal 
group  of  the  Englishmen  of  his  day  and  was,  I  believe, 
himself  in  favour  of  the  success  of  the  cause  of  the  North, 
but  in  common  with  the  majority  of  the  educated  English- 


268  Some  English  Friends 

men  of  his  generation,  he  had  no  faith  that  the  North  could 
prevail  or  that  the  nation  would  continue  to  exist.  In  any 
case  he  lost  interest  in  the  plan  of  his  history  and  no  second 
volume  was  ever  published.  A  second  edition  of  the  first 
volume,  printed  after  the  death  of  the  author,  contains  a 
corrected  title-page  with  no  reference  to  the  "disruption 
of  the  American  Republic." 

Edward  Clodd.  A  good  many  years  back,  when  I  was 
looking  for  literature  for  the  guidance  of  my  young 
daughters,  I  got  hold  of  Clodd' s  Childhood  of  the  World 
and  Childhood  of  Religion.  I  was  at  once  impressed  with 
the  fine  combination  presented  in  those  books  of  incisive 
radicalism,  that  is  to  say  of  the  purpose  of  testing  each 
thing  for  itself,  and  of  earnest  reverence  for  the  things, 
whether  they  were  institutions  or  beliefs,  which  when 
tested  showed  that  they  had  come  into  existence  for  the 
good  of  humanity.  When,  years  later,  I  came  to  know  the 
author  of  the  books,  I  was  able  to  realize  that  the  spirit 
of  his  written  word  represented  the  nature  of  the  man 
himself.  At  this  time  of  writing,  my  friend,  Edward  Clodd, 
is  in  the  eighth  decade  of  his  life,  and  during  the  half- 
century  of  his  mature  years,  he  has,  with  enormous  per- 
sistence and  industry,  devoted  the  intelligent  capacity 
with  which  he  is  endowed  to  the  earnest  study  of  the 
problems  of  life. 

He  was  not  born  to  a  life  of  leisure,  and  the  working 
hours  of  his  days  it  has  been  necessary  for  him  to  utilize 
to  secure  a  livelihood  for  himself  and  for  those  for  whom  he 
was  responsible  and  others  for  whom  his  help  was  always 
ready.  He  had  at  his  control  but  a  few  of  the  hours  so 
precious  for  the  man  of  scholarly  tastes,  but  he  was  able 
by  diligent  watching  and  opportunities  to  make  time  for 
thought  and  for  literary  work  presenting  the  results  of 
thought,  and  for  service  in  the  Rationalist  Association  and 
in  other  channels  of  activities.  Modest,  unselfish,  earnest, 


Edward  Clodd  269 

incisive,  reverent,  his  teachings  have  always  been  sym- 
pathetic, suggestive,  and  above  all  characterized  by  abso- 
lute intellectual  integrity. 

It  has  been  my  privilege  from  year  to  year  to  be  a  visitor 
at  the  charming  little  cottage  at  Aldborough  on  the  east 
coast.  In  this  cottage,  which  had  been  handed  down  to 
Clodd  from  his  father,  it  was  his  pleasure  to  gather  for  a 
week-end  sojourn  friends  with  whom  he  had  intellectual 
and  moral  sympathies  and  other  friends  who,  while  not 
accepting  Clodd's  conclusions,  were  valuable  for  personal 
relation.  The  hospitable  wherry,  the  Lotus,  as  sailed,  or 
under  pressure  of  adverse  wind  as  pulled  with  heavy 
sweeps,  on  the  river  Aid,  has  been  the  scene  of  many  an 
active  and  interesting  discussion  on  quidquid  agunt 
homines,  carried  on  by  groups  that  in  successive  years 
have  included  among  others  men  as  different  as  Meredith, 
Thomas  Hardy,  Shorter,  Seccombe,  and  Jacobs.  Clodd  has 
always  had  a  genius  for  friendship  and  he  has  had  the 
closest  and  most  affectionate  relations  with  men  differing 
much  from  each  other,  and  some  of  whom  have  been 
brought  together  only  through  Clodd  as  a  connecting  link. 
Clodd  was  an  admirer  of  Omar  Khayyam  as  interpreted 
by  FitzGerald,  and  an  early  member  of  the  Omar  Khay- 
yam Club.  He  told  me  of  a  visit  made  by  a  group  of 
Omarites  at  the  time  of  the  return  to  England  of  the 
Minister  to  Persia.  The  Minister,  himself  an  enthusiastic 
Omarite,  had  brought  with  him  two  cuttings  from  one  of 
the  rose  bushes  that  shelter  the  grave  of  Omar  at  Ispahan. 
These  cuttings  were  planted  at  the  head  and  foot  of  the 
grave  of  Omar's  great  interpreter  FitzGerald  in  the 
picturesque  little  churchyard.  I  have  visited  the  grave 
more  than  once  and  have  seen  with  pleasure  the  beautiful 
great  bushes  that  have  developed  from  the  cuttings,  the 
blossoms  of  which  from  June  to  June  scatter  their  petals 
over  the  dust  of  the  warm-hearted  FitzGerald.  Clodd 


270  Some  English  Friends 

told  me  of  a  little  account  given  in  one  of  the  London 
papers  of  this  pilgrimage  of  the  Omarites  to  FitzGerald's 
grave,  an  account  which  ended  with  the  appropriate  lines : 

".  .  .  the  Wild  Ass 
Stamps  o'er  his  Head,  but  cannot  break  his  sleep." 

Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan.  I  had  the  pleasure  more 
than  once  of  meeting  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan,  nephew 
of  Macaulay,  and  himself  one  of  the  distinguished  authors 
of  his  generation.  I  remember  in  lunching  with  him,  prob- 
ably about  1900,  speaking  with  appreciation  of  his  brilliant 
historical  sketch  of  the  American  Revolution  and  making 
special  reference  to  the  skill  with  which  he  had  described 
the  battle  of  Trenton.  There  are  not  a  few  historians 
whose  scholarship  is  trustworthy,  and  whose  work  is 
presented  with  due  literary  skill,  who  have  never  been 
able  to  realize  with  sufficient  precision  the  problems  of 
the  management  of  the  campaigns,  or  the  manner  in  which 
troops  behave  under  fire.  Not  a  few  of  the  histories  which 
have  won  reputation  are  marred  in  their  completeness  and 
in  their  trustworthiness  by  the  vague,  amateurish  way  in 
which  is  presented  the  record  of  campaigns  and  of  battles. 
Sir  George  impressed  me  as  possessing  what  the  staff 
officer  calls  the  topographical  instinct.  He  knew  exactly 
what  had  happened  on  Christmas  night,  1776,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Delaware;  how  the  troops  had  been  ferried  across 
the  ice  crowded  stream  and  pressed  up  the  river  bank  on  to 
the  north  end  of  the  main  road  through  the  town,  while 
General  Knox  was  carrying  out  the  still  more  difficult 
problem  of  getting  guns  across  the  river  on  the  frail  barges 
that  were  available  and  hauling  these  guns  by  men  power 
(there  were  no  horses  within  reach)  up  the  icy  banks,  so 
that  they  could  be  planted  at  the  south  end  of  the  town 
where,  even  with  no  reserve  of  infantry  behind  them,  they 
could  complete  the  discomfiture  of  the  Hessians  under 


Lord  Kitchener  271 

Rahl.  "You  must  have  studied  that  ground  very  care- 
fully, sir,"  I  said.  "Why,  Major,"  replied  Sir  George, 
"  I  never  have  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  the  American 
side  of  the  Atlantic."  He  had,  nevertheless,  studied,  if 
not  the  ground,  the  descriptions  of  the  ground,  in  such 
manner  as  to  take  in  accurately  the  picture  of  the  things 
that  happened. 

On  one  other  matter  we  found  ourselves  in  substantial 
accord.  "Do  you  not  think,  Sir  George,  that  your  good 
uncle,  great  author  and  able  citizen  as  he  was,  made  a 
mistake  when  he  killed  Talfourd's  copyright  bill?"  This 
bill,  framed  by  Talfourd  in  1841,  proposed  to  secure  copy- 
right for  the  life  of  the  author  and  thirty  years.  It  was 
defeated  by  the  eloquence  of  Macaulay,  who  thought  that 
the  author's  life  was  quite  a  long  enough  term  for  such  a 
monopoly,  but  who  was  finally  persuaded  to  agree  to  an 
extension  of  seven  years.  "I  have  every  reason  to  agree 
with  you ,  Putnam, ' '  said  Sir  George.  ' '  I  should  have  been 
some  thousands  of  pounds  better  off  if  my  uncle  had  let 
Talfourd's  bill  alone."  Over  seventy  years  of  argument 
and  labour  were  required  before,  in  1912,  the  legislators 
of  England  decided  that  the  intellectual  interests  of  the 
community  would  be  served  by  securing  for  literary 
workers  the  right  to  obtain  a  return  from  their  labours  for 
their  sons  and  grandsons,  as  well  as  for  themselves. 

Lord  Kitchener.  I  had  the  opportunity,  in  crossing 
the  Atlantic  in  the  spring  of  1910,  of  securing  a 
personal  impression  of  Lord  Kitchener,  who  was  at  the 
time  on  his  way  to  London  after  an  absence  from  England 
of  seven  years.  We  were  fellow-passengers  on  the  White 
Star  steamer  Oceanic,  and,  having  had  previous  trips  with 
Captain  Haddock,  I  was  placed  at  his  table  opposite  to  his 
most  distinguished  guest.  Kitchener  was  at  this  time 
about  sixty  years  of  age.  He  had  been  in  command  of  the 
army  in  India  and  had  come  into  conflict  with  the  Viceroy, 


272  Some  English  Friends 

Lord  Curzon,  in  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  civil  authority 
to  the  control  of  the  army  and  to  the  management  of 
problems  and  frictions  arising  on  the  frontier. 

My  first  impression  of  the  General  was  not  entirely 
favourable.  The  figure  was  tall  and  the  bearing  erect  and 
soldierly.  The  ne"ad  was  sturdy  and  rather  bullet-shaped 
and  the  forehead  was  low.  There  was  a  slight  divergence 
in  the  eyes  resulting  in  a  sinister  expression  which  doubt- 
less did  injustice  to  the  nature  of  the  man.  The  general 
impression  given  by  the  face  was,  however,  not  only 
autocratic  but  suggestive  of  a  capacity  for  bad  temper. 
One  felt  that  the  General  would  be  a  bad  man  to  "come 
up  against"  in  a  matter  of  discipline  or  even  of  opinion. 
He  had  gained  the  reputation  of  being  a  great  organizer 
and  a  stern  and  exacting  disciplinarian.  He  was  also 
noted  for  his  aversion  to  titled  or  labelled  incapacity  and 
to  "flummery"  of  all  kinds.  He  was  for  the  great  part  of 
the  time  reticent,  having  no  small  talk  and  expressing  no 
interest  in  the  general  subjects  that  came  up  from  day  to 
day.  In  fact,  while  the  ladies  remained  at  table  (we  had 
two  in  a  party  of  eight)  Kitchener  hardly  opened  his  lips. 
I  remembered  having  been  told  that  he  was  a  confirmed 
misogynist  and  that  he  made  it  a  practice  to  refuse  to 
place  any  special  responsibility  in  the  hands  of  a  married 
officer  if  a  bachelor  were  within  reach.  He  took  the 
ground  that  the  influence  or  even  the  existence  of  a  wife 
was  likely  to  be  demoralizing  on  the  capacity  either  for 
working  or  for  fighting. 

Kitchener  had  come  from  India  by  way  of  Japan  and  he 
had  utilized  his  sojourn  in  the  Far  East  to  make  a  thorough 
study,  with  Marshal  Oyama  and  his  associates,  of  the 
history  and  topography  of  the  Manchurian  campaign.  I 
happened  to  be  the  only  other  old  soldier  in  the  ship's 
company,  and  as  I  had  been  interested  in  reading  the 
several  records  of  the  Japanese  war,  I  was  able  by  perti- 


Lord  Kitchener  273 

nent  questions  and  suggestions  to  lead  the  General  on  in  a 
narrative  that  was  valuable  as  history  and  that  had  also  a 
personal  interest  as  expressing  his  views  on  the  operations 
of  modern  warfare.  Kitchener  had  a  great  respect  for  the 
leaders  and  the  personnel  of  the  army  of  Japan  and  was 
of  opinion  that  if  Japan  came  into  antagonism  with  the 
United  States,  we  should  find  it  difficult  to  defend  the 
Pacific  slope  against  such  an  invasion  as  could  be  organ- 
ized. He  admitted,  however,  that  under  the  present 
policy  of  the  Empire,  its  resources  would  for  a  series  of 
years  to  come  be  directed  to,  and  be  fully  absorbed  in, 
strengthening  its  position  in  Korea,  Formosa,  and  Man- 
churia, and  that  the  government  was  discouraging  migra- 
tion and  investments  in  other  directions. 

The  General  gave  me  one  evening  the  benefit  of  a  talk 
all  to  myself  on  the  essential  importance  and  value  of  war 
for  the  development  and  maintenance  of  character  and 
manliness  in  the  individual  and  in  the  community.  He 
could  conceive  of  no  power  or  factor  that  could  replace 
war  as  an  influence  to  preserve  man  from  degeneracy.  He 
did  not  lose  sight  of  the  miseries  and  the  suffering  resulting 
from  war,  but  be  believed  that  the  loss  to  mankind  would 
be  far  greater  from  the  "rottenness"  of  a  long  peace. 
Speaking  from  recent  experience,  he  pointed  out  that  the 
princes  and  "gentle"  classes  of  India  who  considered  war 
as  the  only  possible  occupation  (with  the  exception  of 
hunting)  for  gentlemen,  found  their  chief  grievance  against 
British  rule  in  the  fact  that  it  prevented  fighting  through- 
out the  Peninsula.  Kitchener  agreed  with  the  Indian 
princes  in  the  belief  that  they  and  their  noble  subjects 
were  decaying  in  character  under  the  enforced  idleness  of 
the  pax  Britannica  and  he  sympathized  keenly  with  their 
princely  grievance.  I  suggested  to  the  General  that  during 
the  periods  in  which  Europe  had  accepted  most  thoroughly 
the  domination  of  the  soldier  class  and  the  influence  of  the 

18 


274  Some  English  Friends 

military  ideal,  as  for  instance  during  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  there  had  been  no  satisfactory  development  of 
nobility  of  character.  He  admitted  this  objection  as 
pertinent,  but  contended  that  war  could  be  carried  on  with 
methods  and  with  standards  that  would  preserve  it  as  an 
instrument  of  civilization.  I  asked  whether  it  would  be  a 
good  thing  for  India  if  the  British  force,  once  every  ten 
years  or  so,  should  establish  a  "ring  fence"  within  which 
the  princes  might,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  themselves 
in  condition,  carry  on  a  little  fighting  with  their  own 
followers,  a  kind  of  twentieth-century  tournament.  "I 
could  hardly  take  the  responsibility,  Major,"  he  replied, 
"of  formally  recommending  such  a  plan,  but  I  am  con- 
vinced that  it  would  have  many  advantages." 

I  found  the  General  modest  enough  in  his  utterances  on 
matters  in  which  he  was  an  accepted  authority,  but  dis- 
posed to  be  "cocky"  in  his  conclusions  on  things  of  which 
he  knew  little  or  nothing.  He  had,  for  instance,  in  a  seven 
days'  trip  across  the  "States,"  arrived  at  the  belief  that 
our  educational  methods  in  the  Western  States  must  be 
working  serious  mischief  in  the  community.  "It  is  evi- 
dent," he  remarked,  "that  among  the  results  of  coedu- 
cation, there  must  be  a  great  increase  in  the  number  of 
illegitimate  babies!" 

I  understood  that  the  Field  Marshal  was  expected  in  the 
near  future  to  succeed  Lord  Roberts  in  the  command  of 
the  forces  of  the  Empire,  and  I  thought  it  fortunate  for 
Britain  that  she  had  available  for  this  responsibility  a 
man  who,  while  narrow,  uncultivated,  and  prejudiced, 
possessed  so  much  force,  strength  of  character,  and  devoted 
patriotism,  and  probably  also  (although  I  realized  that 
there  had  as  yet  been  no  opportunity  for  a  full  test)  so 
much  real  ability  as  a  leader  of  men. 

The  Johnson  Club.  I  have  had  pleasant  associations, 
covering  a  long  series  of  years,  with  a  group  of  men,  many 


The  Johnson  Club  275 

of  them  very  interesting  men,  who  had  organized  in  the 
early  eighties  a  club  for  perpetuating  the  memory  of 
Samuel  Johnson.  The  club  included  in  its  membership, 
among  others,  Augustine  Birrell,  Thomas  Seccombe, 
George  Whale,  and  Fisher  Unwin. 

It  was  the  custom  of  the  club  to  come  together  twice 
a  year  for  a  meal  called  a  supper.  It  was  not  considered 
good  form  for  a  Johnsonian  to  speak  of  "dining"  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  These  gatherings  were  in  great 
part  held  at  taverns  or  other  places  with  which  Johnson 
had  had  personal  association.  I  remember  a  visit  to  Litch- 
field  in  the  early  nineties  at  which  the  club  was  received 
by  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  the  Dean  of  the  Cathedral,  and 
other  dignitaries.  I  held  in  my  hand  on  the  bowling  green 
the  bowl  which  had  been  used  by  the  great  Samuel  and 
which  still  bore  his  initials.  I  examined  in  the  lending 
book  of  the  Cathedral  the  record  of  various  loans  made 
first  to  the  assistant  in  the  book-shop  in  Litchfield,  and 
later  to  the  literary  worker  in  London.  One  of  the  entries 
remained  as  I  noted  unsettled.  Samuel  had  borrowed  two 
books  that  had  apparently  not  been  returned.  The  libra- 
rian said  that  they  were  always  hoping  that  those  books, 
which  contained  the  stamp  of  the  Cathedral  library, 
might  still  turn  up. 

A  year  or  two  later,  the  club  was  meeting  in  Pembroke 
College,  Oxford,  and  a  paper  read  by  one  of  the  mem- 
bers gave  a  description  of  Johnson's  library,  a  descrip- 
tion the  text  for  which  was  the  catalogue  of  the  library 
as  printed  for  the  auction  sale  that  was  held  after 
Johnson's  death.  Our  friend  had  discovered  this  cata- 
logue in  a  group  of  pamphlets  in  the  Bodleian.  I  hap- 
pened to  carry  in  memory  the  titles  of  the  two  books 
which  were  still  due  to  the  Cathedral  library  in  Litchfield, 
and  I  was  interested  in  finding  both  titles  included  in  the 
auctioneer's  catalogue,  but  this  discovery  did  not  bring 


276  Some  English  Friends 

the  library  in  Litchfield  any  nearer  to  the  recovery  of  the 
lost  volumes. 

The  Prior  of  the  club  for  two  years  was  that  clever 
barrister,  able  administrator,  and  graceful  speaker,  Augus- 
tine Birrell,  who  later  accepted  in  Mr.  Asquith's  Cabinet 
the  post  of  Secretary  for  Ireland.  I  remember  the  manner 
in  which  Birrell  as  presiding  officer  introduced  myself, 
who  happened  to  be  the  first  speaker  of  the  evening. 
"Now,"  he  said,  "we  shall  have  a  word  from  Mr.  Putnam 
who  inhabits  that  vast  unknown  tract  called  the  Western 
Hemisphere." 


CHAPTER  XI 
Varied  Experiences 

A  Parliamentary  Campaign.  In  1887,  I  took  part,  in 
behalf  of  my  old  friend  Daniel  Pidgeon,  in  a  parliamentary 
campaign.  Pidgeon  had  been  trained  as  a  civil  engineer 
and  had  won  a  good  position  in  his  profession.  He  was 
the  designing  engineeer,  or  one  of  the  engineers,  who  con- 
structed the  Westminster  Bridge.  In  the  course  of  his 
professional  work  he  had  been  in  various  parts  of  the  world 
and  had  made  various  sojourns  in  the  United  States, 
particularly  in  New  England.  He  had  found  himself 
keenly  interested  in  American  institutions  and  conditions, 
and  I  had  never  met  an  Englishman  who  was  so  well 
informed  on  American  affairs.  He  had  been  impressed 
with  the  commercial  value  of  the  inventive  capacity  of  his 
American  friends  and  with  the  advantage  to  the  American 
community  of  the  wide  distribution  secured  for  labour- 
saving  devices  many  of  which  were  quite  unfamiliar  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  He  had  finally  constituted  a 
business  devoted  to  the  importation  into  Great  Britain,  for 
use  not  only  in  the  British  Isles  but  on  the  continent,  of 
American  devices  of  labour-saving  equipment  of  one  kind 
or  another,  devices  classed  as  "Yankee  notions." 

I  remember  visiting  a  great  warehouse  of  his  company 
on  the  old  Swan  wharf ,  the  six  stories  of  which  were  packed 

with  inventions  and  appliances  from  toothpicks  to  re- 

277 


278  Varied  Experiences 

frigerators.  The  manager  showed  me  a  wooden  skewer 
with  the  word  that  he  imported  from  an  American  factory 
two  thousand  pounds'  worth  of  them  a  year.  The  list 
included  mouse-traps,  cooking  utensils,  stable  appliances, 
and  in  fact  almost  every  possible  result  of  American  in- 
genuity. The  concern  was  doing  an  increasing  business 
and  is  doubtless  still  prospering. 

Pidgeon  found  himself  one  year  particularly  interested 
in  a  new  mechanism,  devised  by  somebody  in  Massachu- 
setts, for  completing  by  machinery  certain  processes  in  the 
making  of  brushes  which  had  formerly  been  done  by  hand. 
He  purchased  the  patent  and  imported  into  London  not 
only  a  set  of  the  brush-making  machinery  but  a  Yankee 
foreman  to  supervise  the  operation  of  the  same  and  to 
give  the  necessary  instruction  to  the  British  workmen. 
The  Star  Brush  Company  then  constituted  secured  an 
immediate  success  and  is  today,  after  thirty  years'  ex- 
perience, one  of  the  important  industrial  concerns.  Pid- 
geon was  also  one  of  the  founders  of  an  establishment  at 
B  anbury  near  Oxford  for  the  construction  of  agricultural 
machinery  and  in  this  concern  he  utilized  to  full  advantage 
a  number  of  American  inventions  and  ideas. 

He  was  an  advanced  Liberal  and  was  quite  prepared 
to  accept  an  invitation  from  the  Liberal  parliamentary 
committee  to  contest  the  South  Evesham  district  of 
Worcester  County.  He  was  unknown  in  the  region  (not  an 
unusual  experience  for  an  English  parliamentary  candidate) 
and  as  this  was  his  beginning  in  politics,  he  had  not  as  yet 
brought  together  any  group  of  political  friends  who  were 
prepared  to  assist  in  his  campaign.  The  county  district 
covered  a  good  deal  of  ground  and  my  friend  needed  help 
with  his  speaking.  I  received  while  in  Oxford  a  line  asking 
if  I  would  not  come  down  and  take  part  in  the  campaign. 
I  was  keenly  interested  in  doing  anything  that  might  be  of 
service  to  my  friend  or  that  might  further  the  cause  of 


A  Parliamentary  Campaign  279 

the  Liberals;  I  was  at  the  time  a  good  Gladstonian.  I 
wrote,  however,  with  some  question  as  to  the  wisdom  of 
using  in  an  English  political  contest  the  service  of  a  Yankee. 
Pidgeon's  rejoinder  showed,  however,  that  he  was  quite 
clear  in  his  mind  on  this  matter.  He  reminded  me  that 
the  particular  issue  of  the  campaign  was  the  county  home 
rule  bill.  "All  you  have  to  do,"  he  said,  "is  to  tell  the 
voters  how  you  manage  county  home  rule  and  town  home 
rule  in  New  England,  and  when  you  are  through  with 
your  talk,  be  prepared  to  answer  their  questions." 

On  my  way  from  Oxford  to  Worcester,  I  had  a  day  in 
London  and  I  found  awaiting  me  a  request  to  lunch  at  the 
Bachelor  Club  with  W.  H.  Mallock.  I  knew  Mallock 
slightly,  having  published  two  of  his  books,  but  I  was  not  a 
little  puzzled  as  to  why  I  was  honoured  with  such  an  invi- 
tation. The  lunch  was  very  satisfactory  as  is  always  the 
case  in  this  luxurious  club,  but  I  found  that  I  had  secured 
it  under  a  wrong  impression  on  the  part  of  my  host. 
When  we  got  to  the  cigars,  he  told  me  that  he  had  a 
request  to  make.  "I  am  going  down  to  Cornwall  to  do 
some  campaigning  for  a  cousin  from  London  who  is  run- 
ning for  Parliament,  of  course  as  a  good  Conservative. 
We  have  a  great  district  to  cover,  and  we  are  short  of 
speakers  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  you  might  possibly 
be  interested,  if  only  for  the  fun  of  a  new  experience,  in 
coming  down  to  help  us  for  a  few  days. " 

"But,"  I  demurred,  "I  should  doubt  whether  the  in- 
fluence of  a  Yankee  would  be  likely  to  prove  of  service  to 
a  candidate  in  an  English  campaign." 

"Oh, "  responded  my  host,  "you  would  have  something 
very  pertinent  to  add  to  the  matters  that  are  now  being 
discussed  by  the  English  voters.  We  are,  as  you  of  course 
understand,  fighting  against  an  extended  movement,  I 
should  almost  call  it  a  conspiracy,  for  the  disintegration 
of  the  United  Kingdom.  The  so-called  Home-Rulers  will, 


280  Varied  Experiences 

of  course,  not  be  satisfied  with  taking  Ireland  out  of  the 
authority  of  Parliament.  Their  plans  for  breaking  up  the 
kingdom  will  doubtless  proceed  to  home  rule  or  separatist 
schemes  for  Wales  and  for  Scotland.  Now  you  Yankees 
have  only  recently  gotten  through  with  a  great  struggle  for 
union,  for  the  maintenance  of  the  nation.  Our  voters 
I  am  sure  will  be  very  much  interested  in  hearing  from  you 
what  were  the  motives  that  influenced  you  fellows  in  your 
four  years'  fight,  why  the  nation  was  worth  fighting  for, 
and  why  disunion  was  to  be  repressed  at  any  cost." 

"Well, "  I  answered,  " there  would  be  no  great  difficulty 
in  making  a  few  speeches  on  those  lines,  but  I  am  not  the 
man  for  your  purpose.  I  must  admit  that  as  far  as  I  have 
interests  in  England,  I  belong  to  the  Liberal  side  of  the 
present  issue.  I  have,  in  fact,  already  agreed  to  do  some 
talking  for  a  friend  who  is  trying  to  oust  a  Conservative 
member.  I  owe  you  an  apology,"  I  added,  "for  eating 
your  lunch,  not  under  false  pretences,  but  under  a  wrong 
impression." 

Mallock  took  my  response  good-naturedly  enough  but 
said  he  could  hardly  wish  me  success. 

I  had  an  interesting  week  in  Worcestershire.  When  I 
met  my  friend,  he  said  at  once  that  he  had  no  hopes  of 
success.  This  was  his  first  candidacy  and  it  was  the 
custom  of  the  Central  Committee  to  let  a  new  man  fight 
it  out  first  in  a  hopeless  district,  and  when  he  had  done 
his  share  of  that  kind  of  campaigning,  to  give  him  a  fight- 
ing chance  somewhere  else.  The  sitting  candidate  for  the 
South  Evesham  district  was  a  large  landowner  and  was 
popular  as  a  landlord.  It  was  Sir  Richard  Temple,  who 
had,  if  I  remember  rightly,  the  reputation  of  being  the 
homeliest  man  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  an 
authority  on  Indian  matters  and  had  won  approval  as  a 
good  working  man  in  committee.  There  was  no  reason  at 
all,  if  the  Conservatives  were  to  be  kept  in,  why  Sir  Richard 


A  Parliamentary  Campaign  281 

should  not  hold  his  seat.  That  also  was  the  opinion  of  the 
majority  of  the  voters,  or  at  least  of  the  agricultural  voters, 
in  the  district. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  these  rural  workers  came  out  to 
listen  to  our  talk  and  treated  us  respectfully  enough.  I 
found  myself  quite  baffled  in  the  attempt  to  bring  any 
trace  of  expression  into  these  upturned  bucolic  faces.  I 
was  surprised  that  after  a  long  day's  work  in  the  fields 
(the  election  was  in  June)  they  should  be  prepared  to  give 
an  hour  or  more  in  the  evening  to  listen  to  a  stranger  with 
whom,  as  far  as  they  understood  what  he  was  saying,  they 
disagreed.  It  was  like  fishing  in  a  dead  pool  to  try  to 
bring  a  ripple  of  responsiveness  into  their  faces.  I  found 
that  the  closer  I  came  to  parish  conditions,  the  better  was 
my  chance  of  success.  When  I  mentioned  the  town  pump 
and  the  right  of  the  villagers  to  control  its  output,  there  was 
at  least  a  ripple  of  appreciation.  In  one  hamlet,  I  secured 
an  audience  of  a  very  different  character.  The  village 
was  devoted  to  needle-making  and  the  400  voters  were 
nearly  all  workers  in  the  factory.  They  were  probably 
not  natives  of  the  country.  They  had  a  different  physique 
and  were  very  much  keener  in  their  expression.  When  I 
got  through  with  my  talk,  I  had  to  answer  a  long  series 
of  very  intelligent  questions  on  the  American  method  of 
managing  villages,  towns,  counties,  and  states.  These 
men  had  a  fair  understanding  of  the  purpose  of  federalism, 
and  if  any  large  number  in  the  British  Isles  could  have 
approached  the  subject  with  the  intelligence  of  these 
needle-makers,  the  problem  which  has  been  troubling 
English  voters  and  legislators  for  half  a  century  and  more, 
as  to  the  best  method  of  keeping  in  harmonious  relations 
the  different  units  of  the  United  Kingdom,  would  be  well 
on  towards  solution.  When  the  election  was  over,  it  was 
evident  that  my  friend  Mallock  had  what  the  boys  call 
the  "grind"  on  me.  His  cousin  was  elected  by  a  safe 


282  Varied  Experiences 

majority,  while  the  candidate  who  had  secured  the  help 
of  the  Yankee  was  badly  beaten. 

I  was  interested  in  testing  in  this  election  the  working 
of  the  bribery  and  corruption  Act.  I  found  my  friend 
and  his  son,  who  was  helping  in  the  management  of  the 
campaign,  under  the  necessity  of  watching  very  closely 
each  penny  that  was  expended  for  campaign  purposes 
either  by  the  candidate  himself  or  by  any  associates  or 
assistants  who  -could  be  classed  as  his  representatives. 
Under  the  provisions  of  the  act,  the  candidates  were  per- 
mitted expenditure  only  under  certain  specified  headings, 
while  the  total  expenditure  was  limited  to  a  certain  sum 
per  voter,  if  I  remember  rightly,  something  like  8/6d. 
The  accountant  for  the  little  party  was  called  upon,  there- 
fore, from  morning  to  morning  to  tell  how  near  the  total 
the  expenditure  had  come.  My  friend  happened  to  be 
with  me  in  an  inspection  of  the  needle  factory  although  he 
was  called  off  to  speak  somewhere  else  that  evening.  As 
we  came  out,  realizing  that  it  might  not  be  in  order  for 
him  to  use  his  pocketbook,  my  hand  went  into  my  pocket 
for  what  I  supposed  to  be  the  necessary  half-crown  for 
the  workman  who  had  shown  us  about.  I  felt  my  friend's 
hand  gripping  my  arm.  "  No,  Putnam,"  he  said,  "  it  won't 
do.  Not  during  the  campaign.  The  man  will  understand 
why  he  gets  no  fee."  If  any  money  had  been  spent  under 
an  illegitimate  heading  or  if  the  money  spent  under  the 
lawful  headings  exceeded  the  amount  of  the  official  allow- 
ance, the  candidate's  election,  if  he  had  been  successful, 
would  ipso  facto  have  been  set  aside.  It  would  be  very 
satisfactory  if  at  some  time  in  the  near  future,  we  may  be 
able  to  bring  into  operation  in  the  State  of  New  York  as 
effective  a  bribery  and  corruption  act. 

I  had  the  opportunity  of  dividing  the  platform  during  a 
part  of  this  South  Evesham  campaign  with  a  young  barris- 
ter who  had  been  associated  in  Christ  Church  with  the 


The  Economic  Club  and  Mr.  Gladstone    283 

son  of  my  friend  the  candidate.  I  was  impressed  at  once 
with  his  lightness  of  touch  and  keen  sense  of  humour, 
and  with  the  shrewdness  and  readiness  with  which  he 
came  into  sympathetic  relations  with  his  hearers.  His 
speaking,  adapted  properly  enough  to  the  successive 
groups  that  constituted  our  audiences,  at  times  rose  to  a 
high  standard  of  political  eloquence.  He  was  a  most 
charming  fellow  to  campaign  with,  and  I  have  in  years 
since  had  the  privilege  of  holding  with  him  continued 
friendship  relations.  My  young  barrister,  whom  I  first 
met  in  this  campaign  of  1887,  is  now  Baron  Buckmaster, 
Lord  Chancellor  of  England ;  but  his  well-deserved  honours, 
the  result  of  capacity  and  conscientious  labour,  have  not 
been  permitted  to  impair  his  charming  humour  or  his 
simple  straightforwardness  of  character. 

The  Economic  Club  and  Mr.  Gladstone.  I  think  it  was 
in  1887  that  I  had  the  opportunity  of  a  personal  word 
with  Mr.  Gladstone.  I  was  one  of  the  two  guests  at  an 
annual  dinner  of  the  Economic  Club,  an  association  which 
dates  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  I 
have  a  volume  of  the  transactions  of  the  club  bearing  date 
1818.  The  chairman  for  the  evening  was  one  of  the 
governors  of  the  Bank  of  England  and  on  his  right  side 
sat  Mr.  Gladstone  as  the  guest  of  honour.  There  were  in 
all  about  twenty  men  present.  The  paper,  by  Dr.  Fox- 
well  of  St.  Johns,  Cambridge,  was  on  the  subject  of  paper 
money  and  the  special  application  had  to  do  with  the 
suggestion  that  comes  up  from  time  to  time  for  the  intro- 
duction into  England  of  one  pound  notes  and  possibly  of 
paper  currency  of  a  still  lower  denomination. 

It  is  my  memory  that  the  speaker  of  the  evening  fa- 
voured bringing  English  currency  into  line  with  the  sys- 
tem that  obtained  in  Scotland.  Some  member  appointed 
for  the  purpose,  whose  views  were  different  from  those  of 
the  essayist,  presented  an  analysis  of  the  paper.  The 


284  Varied  Experiences 

chairman  then  called  upon  the  two  American  guests,  Ed- 
ward Atkinson  of  Boston  and  myself.  When  our  word  had 
been  given,  the  chairman  called  in  turn  upon  each  member 
present,  beginning  at  his  left  hand.  A  few  admitted 
that  they  had  nothing  to  add  to  what  had  already  been 
said,  simply  expressing  their  conclusion  as  in  accord  either 
with  Foxwell  or  with  his  critic,  but  there  must  have  been 
a  dozen  or  more  distinct  expressions  of  opinion  on  one 
phase  of  the  matter  or  another. 

My  own  contribution  was  an  account  of  the  paper 
currency  of  our  own  Civil  War  period.  I  happened  to 
have  in  my  pocketbook  a  clean  specimen  of  a  three  cent 
postal  note  and  I  exhibited  this  as  an  example  of  what  I 
believed  to  be  the  lowest  denomination  that  had  ever  been 
utilized  by  a  national  government  for  paper  currency.  I 
was  sitting  opposite  Mr.  Gladstone  and  he  stretched  out 
his  hand  in  order  to  secure  a  closer  view  of  the  little  postal 
note.  I  said  naturally  enough,  "The  note  seems  to 
interest  you,  Mr.  Gladstone.  I  should  be  glad  if  you  might 
care  to  add  it  to  your  collection."  He  accepted  the  gift 
with  very  gracious  appreciation.  Later  when  the  others 
had  gotten  through  with  their  talking,  the  chairman  turned 
to  his  right  and  said:  "Now,  Mr.  Gladstone,  you  will 
sum  us  all  up  and  tell  us  what  we  really  ought  to  think." 
The  old  gentleman  had  for  some  time  been  sitting  with  his 
hand  over  his  eyes  and  I  had  thought  he  might  have  been 
indulging  in  a  quiet  nap,  but  it  was  evident  when  he  got 
upon  his  feet  that  he  had  missed  nothing,  or  at  least 
nothing  of  importance,  that  had  passed  in  the  discussion. 
He  gave  a  concise  analysis  of  the  paper  and  of  the  adverse 
argument,  and  then  made  reference  to  each  word  that  had 
been  uttered  about  the  table  that  constituted  any  addition 
to  the  discussion.  He  spoke  very  pleasantly  of  my  own 
little  contribution  as  presenting  quite  a  novel  chapter  in 
the  history  of  paper  money.  He  then  gave  his  own  con- 


A  Buddhist  M.  P.  285 

elusion,  which  was  decidedly  adverse  to  the  introduction 
into  England  of  one  pound  notes.  It  was  about  midnight 
when  Gladstone's  talk  was  completed  and  his  man  was 
waiting  behind  his  chair  with  his  cloak.  In  passing  out, 
he  reached  his  hand  to  me  and  spoke  of  his  pleasure  in 
meeting  me  and  of  his  remembrance  of  some  correspon- 
dence he  had  had  with  me  three  years  back.  I  had  written 
to  ask  his  permission  to  include  in  a  series  of  representative 
essays  that  I  was  compiling  his  paper  on  "Kin  Beyond  the 
Sea."  The  old  gentleman  not  only  remembered  the  fact 
but  remembered  my  selection  and  his  expression  of  ap- 
proval. 

He  left  us  not  for  the  rest  of  home  but  for  the  House  of 
Commons  where  he  was  to  be  busy  for  another  two  or 
three  hours. 

A  Buddhist  M.  P.  I  remember  a  conversation  I  had, 
possibly  in  the  late  eighties,  with  an  acquaintance  whom 
I  had  come  to  know  through  some  Savile  Club  friends,  a 
scholarly  Indian,  I  believe  a  Buddhist.  My  friend  had 
won  a  seat  as  a  Liberal  in  one  of  the  Holborn  districts  of 
London,  but  in  a  second  contest  had  been  unsuccessful. 
He  interested  me  with  the  philosophical  view  which  he 
took  of  the  relations  of  India  with  Great  Britain. 

Mr.  Putnam  [he  said],  the  history  of  my  country  goes  back, 
as  you  know,  some  thousands  of  years.  During  that  period, 
we  have  made  a  number  of  experiments  in  the  management  of 
our  government.  We  have,  so  to  speak,  employed  first  one 
set  of  governors  and  then  another.  Some  of  the  rulers  thus 
called  in  have  been  exceedingly  brutal,  many  have  been  unduly 
extravagant  and  have  largely  exhausted  the  resources  of  the 
people,  and  most  of  them  have  done  their  work  in  a  very 
stupid  and  unsatisfactory  fashion.  After  an  experience  cover- 
ing thousands  of  years,  we  patriotic  Indians  are  prepared  to 
say  that  on  the  whole  we  prefer  to  utilize  as  governors  English- 
men to  any  other  rulers  with  whom  we  have  experimented. 


286  Varied  Experiences 

They  also  have  often  been  stupid  and  there  have  been  times  in 
the  past  when  they  have  been  both  brutal,  unjust,  and  extrava- 
gant, but  as  compared  with  their  predecessors,  the  stupidity, 
and  the  injustice,  and  the  brutality  are  but  small  matters. 
They  do  understand  the  rough  work  of  governing  and  they  do 
this  work  more  intelligently  and  more  cheaply  than  any  rulers 
we  have  ever  been  able  to  secure,  or  than  we  could  at  this  time 
possibly  secure.  The  opinion,  therefore,  of  the  men  of  my 
group  is  strongly,  in  favour  of  the  maintenance  of  English  rule. 
The  Englishman  does  not  know  how  to  think,  but  he  can  and 
will  maintain  order,  administer  justice,  carry  on  the  service  of 
the  state  with  a  moderate  burden  of  taxation,  and  keep  India 
at  peace.  We  are  ready  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  service  and  to 
say  ' '  thank  you  "  besides.  He  can  leave  to  the  Indian  the  work 
of  thinking,  for  which  the  Englishman  is  constitutionally  un- 
fitted. 

My  friend  was  well  acquainted  with  English  literature, 
and  he  might  have  quoted  Matthew  Arnold  in  support  of 
his  view: 

The  East  bow'd  low  before  the  blast 

In  patient,  deep  disdain; 
She  let  the  legions  thunder  past, 

And  plunged  in  thought  again. 

My  Buddhist  friend  was  talking  partly  in  joke,  but 
with  a  good  deal  of  earnestness.  I  remember  quoting  his 
conversation  to  an  English  brother-in-law  of  mine  (my 
sister  had  married  an  Anglo-Indian  Judge)  and  was  met 
with  the  retort,  from  the  prejudiced  point  of  view  c  f  the 
white  man,  "  the  impudent  beggar!" 

Colorado  Springs.  The  winter  of  1882  I  passed  in 
Colorado  Springs.  I  was  under  orders  from  my  doctor 
to  get  away  from  my  business  for  a  few  months,  and  as  the 
requirement  was  not  for  any  special  climate  but  merely 
for  rest,  it  was  only  a  question  of  selecting  some  place 
where  the  months  could  be  passed  pleasantly.  My  friend 


Colorado  Springs  287 

Walter  Howe,  who  had  become  a  special  partner  in  my 
business,  was  going  out  to  Colorado  to  inspect  the  Colorado 
Midland  Road  in  which  he  had  a  business  interest,  and  he 
suggested  that  we  could  make  the  trip  together  and  that 
I  might  find  Colorado  Springs  attractive  for  a  winter 
sojourn. 

We  met  at  the  Springs  three  or  four  of  the  officials  of 
the  road  and  I  had  the  opportunity  of  going  through  the 
Rocky  Mountains  in  the  directors'  observation  car.  The 
car  was  fitted  with  great  plate  glass  windows  at  the  side 
and  at  the  rear  so  that  the  passenger,  seated  in  an  arm- 
chair in  a  pleasantly  warmed  drawing-room,  had  pass 
before  him  a  great  series  of  views  of  snow-covered  and  ice- 
clad  mountains.  I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  had  a  greater 
sense  of  the  luxury  of  travelling  under  civilized  conditions 
than  when  I  was  able  to  enjoy  this  wonderful  panorama 
of  the  most  magnificent  mountains  of  the  continent,  and, 
in  between  the  views,  to  carry  on  a  game  of  chess  with  the 
chief  engineer  of  the  road,  who  being  a  slow  player,  left 
me  long  intervals  for  observation.  The  impressiveness  of 
the  unbroken  wilderness  through  which  we  were  passing, 
a  region  in  which,  for  long  series  of  miles,  there  was  no 
trace  of  occupation  by  man,  was  made  the  greater  by  the 
precision  with  which  the  busy  men  constituting  the  party 
of  directors  maintained  their  communications  with  the 
outer  world.  Two  or  three  times  in  the  course  of  each 
day,  the  little  train  stopped  for  a  moment  at  flag  stations 
in  order  to  secure  the  mail,  which  was  mostly  in  the  form 
of  telegraphic  despatches.  At  one  of  these  stations,  how- 
ever, my  own  Eastern  letters  came  to  hand  and  with  these 
a  copy  of  the  London  Spectator.  The  party  had  no  re- 
quirement for  outside  service,  as  the  train  was  com- 
pletely fitted  for  all  housekeeping  needs.  Each  passenger 
had  a  large  stateroom  to  himself,  while  the  provender  as 
cared  for  by  a  skilled  chef.  The  engineer  of  the  road  was 


288  Varied  Experiences 

inclined  to  seasickness,  and  having  direct  knowledge  that 
under  the  difficulties  of  a  road  which  included  some  very 
steep  inclines  he  had  been  compelled  to  admit  some  sharp 
curves,  he  kept  the  train  slowed  down  at  meal  times  so 
that  there  should  be  no  risk  of  swinging.  I  think  a  similar 
policy  was  pursued  at  night,  but  in  any  case  the  sleeping 
was  very  comfortable.  Hagerman's  Pass,  which  was  the 
highest  point  reached  on  this  road,  is  I  believe  the  highest 
level  attained  -by  any  railroad  on  the  North  American 
continent.  I  understand  that  the  railroad  which  crosses 
South  America  from  Peru  is,  however,  carried  up  still 
higher. 

We  had  an  interesting  short  sojourn  at  Leadville  which, 
through  the  recent  discovery  of  some  rich  silver  lodes,  was 
becoming  one  of  the  most  important  mining  centres  of  the 
country.  The  settlement  was  then  emerging  from  a 
mining  camp  into  a  more  or  less  civilized  town.  It  had  a 
church  and  a  bank  and  a  mayor.  The  mayor  was  the 
president  of  the  bank  and  the  principal  supporter  of  the 
church.  He  took  pains  to  meet  our  train,  which  arrived  in 
the  evening,  and,  in  extending  greetings,  to  offer  the  hos- 
pitality of  the  town.  We  preferred  our  car  staterooms  to 
anything  that  the  hotel  could  offer  and  in  this  preference 
the  mayor  said  that  we  were  quite  right. 

I  took  an  evening  walk  through  the  town  with  the 
mayor,  and  we  went  first  to  his  bank  where  he  wanted  to 
get  some  papers.  The  bank  windows,  instead  of  being 
protected  by  shutters,  were  lighted  up  from  within,  so 
that  the  whole  interior  of  the  bank  could  be  seen  by  the 
watchmen  or  policemen  from  the  sidewalk.  I  think  this 
method  of  bank  protection  was  at  the  time  a  comparative 
novelty.  I  stepped  in  with  the  president  and  we  passed 
within  the  horseshoe  enclosure  where  were  placed  the  desks 
of  the  tellers  and  clerks.  Each  clerk  had  at  his  right  hand, 
not  in  sight  from  outside  the  enclosure  but  very  conven- 


Colorado  Springs  289 

ient  for  immediate  use,  a  five-  or  six-chambered  revolver ; 
and  similar  revolvers  were  in  place  on  the  desks  of  the 
president  and  of  the  cashier.  I  said  nothing,  but  the 
president  noted  my  enquiring  expression.  "Yes,"  he 
said,  "we  insure  here  against  all  possible  risks,  but  we 
don't  have  hold-ups  in  Leadville  and  we  don't  intend  to 
have  them.  We  leave  such  things  as  Northampton  and 
Glenwood  robberies  for  the  so-called  civilized  regions  of 
the  East."  He  was  referring  to  a  recent  very  serious 
burglary  that  had  taken  place  in  the  quiet  old  town  of 
Northampton,  Massachusetts,  and  to  a  more  dramatic 
although  less  profitable  affair  in  Glenwood,  Iowa.  For  the 
Colorado  man,  Iowa  was  still  to  be  described  as  "East." 
With  some  army  memories,  I  spoke  of  the  difficulty  of 
teaching  men  how  to  shoot  straight,  particularly  under 
a  sudden  emergency,  and  suggested  that  if  at  any  time 
the  clerks  became  excited,  there  would  be  risk  of  mischief 
and  the  parties  injured  might  easily  not  be  the  intended 
robbers.  "  Oh ! "  he  said,  "we  have  provided  for  that.  Our 
boys  are  well  trained  and  know  how  to  handle  pistols.  I 
have  a  shooting  match  once  a  month  with  a  golden  eagle 
[$io]  for  a  prize.  There  isn't  one  of  these  men  who  can't 
take  out  the  centre  of  a  five  of  spades  at  a  distance  of"  (I 
do  not  undertake  now  to  recall  how  many,  "yards;  and," 
continued  the  president,  "I  invite  the  town  to  see  the 
match.  Everybody  knows  that  these  boys  can  shoot." 
"That  is  very  interesting,"  I  said,  "but  how  about  the 
possibility  of  this  group  of  skilled  marksmen  turning  their 
pistols  some  day  upon  the  president  and  the  cashier  and 
cleaning  out  the  bank  for  their  own  account?"  "Well," 
he  answered,  "that  is  a  possibility,  but  we  know  our  men 
and  we  do  not  consider  the  risk  serious.  We  have,  however, 
made  some  provision  against  even  such  a  risk.  The  cashier 
and  myself  are  provided  each  with  two  five-chambered 
revolvers  which  lie  in  these  little  spring-locked  drawers  on 

19 


290  Varied  Experiences 

the  right  and  of  these  the  clerks  have  no  knowledge.  We 
have  ten  shots  apiece  and  that  ought  to  be  enough."  I 
came  away  from  the  bank  with  the  feeling  that  its  safety 
was  very  fully  insured ;  and  while  it  has  at  times  held  some 
millions  in  silver  bullion  waiting  transit  to  the  smelting 
furnaces  at  Denver,  I  have  never  heard  of  any  assault  upon 
its  treasury. 

I  had  a  pleasant  winter  in  Colorado  Springs.  The  cli- 
mate was  delicious  mainly  on  the  ground  of  the  freedom  of 
the  air  from  moisture.  The  temperature  went  at  times 
far  below  zero,  but  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  the  sunshine 
was  warm  and  the  perfect  dryness  of  the  air  prevented  the 
cold  from  striking  into  the  human  frame,  or  prevented  the 
heat  of  the  body  from  being  abstracted,  which  is,  of  course, 
the  same  thing.  The  air  seemed  also  to  have  contained  an 
inspiriting  proportion  of  ozone  which  made  everyone, 
even  the  invalids,  feel  hopeful.  The  town  contained  at 
that  time  about  twelve  thousand  people.  There  was  no 
business  done  excepting  that  required  for  the  support  of 
the  sojourners.  It  was  a  place  of  residents.  The  people 
were  there  mainly  for  the  restoration  of  their  own  health 
or  as  companions  to  the  invalids.  I  had  at  first  dreaded 
the  thought  of  being  in  an  atmosphere  of  invalidism;  it 
seemed  as  if  the  effect  must  be  depressing. .  I  found,  how- 
ever, that  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  people  were  on  the 
sick  list,  as  a  whole  family  would  come  to  the  place  for 
the  sake  of  one  member  whose  lungs  were  in  trouble;  I 
found  further  that  the  invalids  themselves  were,  as  said, 
by  no  means  discouraged.  Not  a  few  had  come  too  late 
and  it  was  with  them  only  a  question  of  extending  their 
lives  for  a  few  months,  but  even  these  were  cheerful.  A 
large  proportion,  those  whose  physicians  had  hurried  them 
off  from  the  East  before  the  insidious  disease  had  made  too 
much  progress,  were  so  far  strengthened  by  the  high 
atmosphere  of  the  Colorado  plains  (the  Springs  itself 


Colorado  Springs  291 

was  6000  feet  above  the  sea)  that  their  lives  were  prolonged 
for  a  series  of  years,  although  in  the  majority  of  cases  they 
were  not  permitted  again  to  go  eastward. 

The  town  lay  almost  at  the.  base  of  the  picturesque 
mountain,  Pike's  Peak,  which  puts  out  into  the  plain  as  if 
it  were  an  advance  picket  of  the  great  mass  of  the  Rockies. 
The  railroad  by  which  the  Peak  has  since  been  made 
accessible  for  the  lazier  or  more  hurried  tourist  was  not 
built  until  some  ten  years  later  and  at  this  time  some 
hard  climbing  was  required  in  order  to  reach  the  top  of  the 
mountain.  It  was  possible  to  save  one's  breath  by  using 
horses  or  mules  for  about  half  of  the  distance,  but  the 
remainder  of  the  ascent  was  practicable  only  for  a  pedes- 
trian who  was  not  only  fairly  sturdy  on  his  feet,  but  whose 
heart  and  lungs  were  not  easily  affected  by  the  rarified 
air.  I  had  never  before  realized  how  seriously  the  difficulty 
of  physical  effort  is  increased  by  the  greater  thinness  of  the 
air  as  one  ascends.  The  Peak  is,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
not  very  much  lower  than  Mt.  Blanc ;  but  its  latitude  is 
so  much  lower  that  the  apex  is  free  from  snow  for  nearly 
half  a  year.  I  was  told  however  that  ice  remained  in  the 
crevices  or  ravines  throughout  the  entire  twelve  months. 

I  made  two  attempts  in  the  course  of  the  winter  to  get 
to  the  top,  succeeding  the  second  time.  On  the  first  trip 
our  party  of  four  included  General  Palmer,  who  as  an 
experienced  horseman  and  campaigner  was  the  leader, 
his  neighbour  and  close  friend  Dr.  W.  A.  Bell,  and  a 
young  Mr.  Mellen,  a  brother-in-law  of  Palmer's.  The 
month  was  January  and  the  ground  was  completely 
covered  with  ice  and  snow  which  presented  a  good  deal  of 
an  obstacle.  We  started  from  Manitou  Springs,  where  Dr. 
Bell  had  built  for  himself  a  beautiful  great  stone  house,  in 
the  model  of  an  English  country  seat,  that  bore  the  name 
of  Briarhurst,  and  had  a  ride  of  six  or  seven  miles  before 
getting  to  the  point  where  the  horses  had  to  be  left.  The 


292  Varied  Experiences 

bridle  path  was  fairly  manageable  for  the  prairie  ponies, 
unshod,  if  I  remember  rightly,  who  were  accustomed  to 
picking  their  way  over  difficulties.  We  reached  a  point, 
however,  where  some  snow  had  carried  down  the  slope  a 
portion  of  the  path,  leaving  a  gap  of  twenty  or  thirty  feet. 
Palmer  concluded  that  it  would  be  possible  to  pull  the 
horses  up  the  slope  and  around  the  gap,  and  after  some 
labour  this  was  effected  for  the  three  prairie  ponies.  The 
scrub  oak  with  'which  the  slope  was  covered  gave  help  for 
the  footing.  Palmer's  horse,  a  larger  and  more  spirited 
beast,  was  left  for  the  last.  The  General  tried  to  pull  and 
we  helped,  but  the  horse  had  made  up  his  mind  that  the 
slope  was  not  a  proper  one  for  a  decent  beast  to  attack  and 
he  was  too  strong  for  all  of  us.  After  some  argument  with 
the  horse,  Palmer  soothed  him  down  as  he  thought  and 
then  undertook  to  drive  him  from  behind.  The  horse 
accepted  the  orders  of  his  master  and  made  a  vigorous 
attempt  at  the  slope.  He  got  up  a  few  feet,  then  slipped 
and  fell  and  rolled  down  sideways.  We  who  were  standing 
above,  too  far  off  to  be  of  any  service,  thought  for  the 
moment  that  the  horse  was  rolling  over  his  master;  but 
Palmer  with  presence  of  mind  had  made  a  jump  for  an 
overhanging  branch  and  had  been  able  to  swing  himself 
sufficiently  high  for  the  beast  to  roll  beneath  his  feet.  The 
horse  brought  up  not  many  feet  below  against  a  fortunate 
barrier  of  scrub  oak  and  lay  there  with  h  s  four  feet  in  the 
air,  absolutely  disgusted  with  the  stupidity  of  men.  We 
hurried  down,  congratulated  our  friend  on  his  very  narrow 
escape,  and  after  a  good  deal  of  effort  succeeded  in  getting 
the  beast  again  upon  his  feet.  His  nostrils  were  washed 
out  with  a  little  whiskey  and  water,  and  after  he  had  been 
thoroughly  soothed  down,  he  was  taken  first  down  the 
slope  a  little  way  in  order  to  reassure  him,  and  then, 
cleverly  turned  by  his  master,  he  was  induced  to  scramble 
up  over  a  larger  circuit  which  involved  a  little  less  steep- 


Colorado  Springs  293 

ness  of  ascent.  The  temperature  at  this  time  was  about 
ten  below  zero  and  we  had  all  become  so  chilled  with  the 
delay  that  it  was  a  decided  relief  to  be  able  a  little  later  to 
tether  the  horses  in  a  half-way  house,  constructed  for  the 
purpose,  and  to  tackle  the  rest  of  the  ascent  on  our  own 
feet.  We  made  good  progress  up  to  the  foot  of  the  final 
slope,  but  there  we  encountered  a  sudden  little  blizzard 
coming  from  the  west  which  blew  with  such  force  that  we 
absolutely  could  not  stand  up  against  it  on  a  slope  that 
was  so  icy  as  to  give  at  best  but  a  treacherous  footing. 
After  several  fruitless  attempts  to  go  over  on  our  feet,  we 
finally  succeeded  in  getting  across  on  our  hands  and  knees, 
but  the  blast  was  too  strong  on  the  upper  and  western 
edge.  There  was  risk  of  our  being  chilled  through,  the 
more  particularly  as  the  wind  carried  with  it  particles  of 
ice  which  pierced  right  through  our  clothing.  Palmer 
ordered  us  to  retreat  and  we  found  shelter  under  a  cliff  on 
the  eastern  edge  of  the  final  slope  and  there  we  waited  for 
the  squall  to  blow  over.  If  it  had  been  a  real  blizzard, 
we  might,  I  suppose,  have  remained  under  the  cliff  until 
this  day.  Fortunately  it  was  only  a  squall,  but  it  lasted 
so  long,  probably  for  an  hour  or  two,  and  we  were  so  chilled 
when  the  air  had  again  cleared  up  and  we  could  see  the  way, 
that  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  make  a  hurried  rush 
downward  for  warmth  and  for  safety.  We  got  back  with 
no  further  disasters  than  a  few  frostbites. 

A  month  later,  when  the  temperature  was  a  little  less 
keen  and  the  softened  ice  gave  a  better  footing  for  the 
horses,  we  tried  again  and  with  success. 

General  Palmer  was  in  many  ways  a  typical  American. 
He  was  a  mechanical  engineer  by  profession  and  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  he  had  been  the  foreman  of  a 
department  of  a  machine  shop  in  Pennsylvania.  When  he 
decided  to  enlist,  his  employers  gave  him  leave  of  absence 
with  the  promise  that  his  place  should  be  held  for  him  as 


294  Varied  Experiences 

long  as  possible.  He  raised  a  cavalry  company,  but  he 
had  not  been  long  in  active  service  before,  on  the  principle 
of  natural  selection  and  survival  of  the  fittest,  he  became 
colonel  of  the  regiment.  After  the  battle  of  Antietam  in 
September,  1862,  when  it  was  very  important  to  learn  in 
what  direction  Lee  had  moved  his  army,  Palmer  volun- 
teered to  go  across  the  Potomac  in  citizen's  clothes  and 
find  out.  He  took  with  him  one  of  his  own  sergeants,  also 
without  a  uniform,  and  it  was  arranged  that  in  case  they 
were  captured,  they  should  take  the  characters  of  farmers 
from  Tennessee  who  were  in  sympathy  with  the  Con- 
federates. Palmer  was  to  offer  for  sale  certain  horses  that 
he  had  available  on  his  Tennessee  ranch  and  the  sergeant 
was  to  pose  as  a  farrier  who  had  direct  knowledge  of  the 
horses  and  could  guide  to  his  master's  home  the  Confeder- 
ate quartermaster  who  might  be  willing  to  make  a  pur- 
chase. Palmer  got  the  information  required  and  had 
nearly  regained  our  lines  when  he  unfortunately  ran  into  a 
Confederate  cavalry  picket.  The  two  men  were  taken  up 
as  suspicious  characters,  and  suspicious  they  certainly 
were.  The  sergeant  was,  however,  put  to  work  at  shoeing 
horses,  a  trade  which  fortunately  he  really  did  understand ; 
while  Palmer  was  sent  off  to  Castle  Thunder  in  Richmond, 
where  were  retained  for  longer  or  shorter  terms  all  prison- 
ers other  than  soldiers.  It  was  the  custom  at  Castle 
Thunder,  as  Palmer  told  me  (and  as  I  verified  afterwards 
during  my  own  sojourn  as  a  prisoner  in  Richmond),  for 
the  roll  to  be  called  each  morning,  at  which  probably  very 
few  men  answered  to  their  proper  name,  and  each  morn- 
ing one  or  two  or  more  were  carried  off  to  be  shot  or 
hanged  as  spies.  Palmer  felt  fairly  sure  that  his  turn 
must  come  in  the  near  future.  As  an  old  soldier,  he 
realized,  of  course,  that  he  had  accepted  service  as  a  spy 
and  was  liable  to  the  consequences.  He  was  recognized 
by  two  men  in  the  prison  who  had  undertaken  similar 


Kossuth  and  Apponyi  295 

difficult  service  and  who  had,  like  Palmer,  come  to  grief, 
but  the  three  men  knew  too  much  to  convey  to  each  other 
any  sign  of  recognition  in  the  presence  of  their  associates, 
some  of  whom  were  Confederate  spies,  placed  there  for  the 
purpose  of  finding  out  the  secrets  of  the  prisoners.  Pal- 
mer was  finally  fortunate  enough  to  be  exchanged  for  a 
similarly  "suspicious  character"  who  had  been  locked  up 
in  the  capitol  prison  in  Washington  and  whom  the 
Federal  authorities  had  not  been  able  fully  to  identify. 
When  he  got  back  to  his  command,  he  found  a  brigadier's 
commission  awaiting  him  and  he  did  brilliant  service 
through  the  war  first  in  charge  of  his  brigade  and  later  as 
division  commander.  At  the  close  of  the  war,  with  a  few 
commissions  in  his  pocket  but  with  no  savings,  Palmer 
made  his  way  back  to  his  Pennsylvania  works  and  asked 
about  his  place.  The  manager  told  him  that  the  war  had 
lasted  so  much  longer  than  had  been  expected,  that  it  had 
been  found  necessary  to  fill  the  place  and  there  was  at  the 
time  no  other  vacancy.  He  said  the  directors  were  very 
sorry  to  have  to  give  such  a  report,  but  that  if  Palmer 
would  call  the  following  morning,  they  might  have  some 
other  suggestion  to  make.  Palmer  went  away  not  a  little 
troubled,  but  on  calling  the  next  day,  he  found  awaiting 
him  an  invitation  to  take  charge  as  receiver  of  a  Western 
railroad  that  had  gotten  into  difficulties,  and  this  offer, 
accepted  with  gratitude,  started  Palmer  on  his  career  as  a 
successful  railroad  manager.  He  retired  as  a  railroad 
manager  when  he  was  about  seventy-two  and  signalized 
his  retirement  by  leaving  a  fund  of  one  million  dollars  to 
be  divided  among  the  employees  of  the  road  in  proportion 
to  their  salaries  and  their  relative  length  of  service. 

Kossuth  and  Apponyi.  I  had  a  boy's  recollection  of  the 
arrival  in  New  York  in  1851  of  Kossuth,  the  picturesque 
leader  of  the  unsuccessful  revolution  in  Hungary.  It  was 
the  hope  of  Kossuth  to  secure  in  the  States  contributions 


296  Varied  Experiences 

of  money,  and  possibly  also  the  service  of  volunteers  who 
could  be  utilized  for  a  scheme  that  was  then  in  train  for  a 
fresh  attempt  for  Hungarian  independence.  Kossuth 
and  the  other  leaders  of  1848  had  secured  a  preliminary 
success  against  the  armies  of  Austria,  and  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  aid  given  to  Vienna  by  the  forces  of  Russia, 
it  is  possible  that  Hungary  might  as  early  as  1849  have 
secured  the  independence  that  finally  came  to  it  in  1866 
through  the  needs  of  the  Empire  at  the  time  of  the  contest 
with  Prussia. 

My  father  was  a  member  of  the  committee  that  ar- 
ranged for  the  reception  of  Kossuth  and  extended  to  him 
hospitality  on  behalf  of  the  city.  There  remains  to  me  a 
memory  of  the  picturesque  figure  of  the  Hungarian  orator, 
and  an  impression  of  piercing  eyes  and  shaggy  dark  locks 
beneath  an  imposing  sombrero.  Kossuth  spoke  English 
not  only  fluently  but  with  elegance  and  force,  and  he  so 
far  impressed  successive  American  audiences  as  to  secure 
some  thousands  of  dollars  and  the  aid  of  some  hundreds  of 
volunteers;  but  the  second  revolution  never  came  off. 

The  visit  of  Kossuth  was  recalled  to  me  half  a  century 
later  when  I  found  myself  a  member  of  a  committee 
extending  hospitality  to  a  later  Hungarian  leader,  Count 
Apponyi.  The  Count  came,  however,  not  as  a  revolu- 
tionist, but  as  a  member  of  the  government  of  the  King  of 
Hungary,  a  government  which  divided  with  Austria  the 
control  of  the  dual  Empire.  Apponyi  was,  like  Kossuth, 
impressive  in  his  personal  appearance.  He  was  several 
inches  over  six  feet  in  height,  and  his  massive  form 
carried  a  well-formed  and  dignified  head.  He  had  a  good 
mastery  of  English,  so  that  his  speech  was  impressive  and 
at  times  eloquent.  The  harmony  of  his  sojourn  in  the 
States  was  somewhat  interfered  with  by  protests  raised  in 
New  York,  and  later  with  more  emphasis  in  Chicago,  on 
the  part  of  representatives  of  the  Slovenians,  Lithuanians, 


Some  Generals  and  Others  297 

and  other  race  groups  of  dwellers  in  the  territory  of  Hun- 
gary. These  Slavic  representatives  contended  that 
Apponyi  and  the  Hungarian  administration  behind  him 
did  not  stand,  and  never  had  stood,  for  free  government 
conducted  on  a  representative  basis  and  with  due  regard 
to  the  rights  and  the  interests  of  all  the  peoples  concerned. 
Pamphlets  were  brought  into  print  in  Chicago  and  in 
New  York  giving  accounts  of  the  continued  oppression 
exercised  by  the  Magyars  over  their  fellow-citizens  in 
Hungary,  oppression  which  was  particularly  obnoxious 
in  the  attempt  to  control  the  educational  system  and 
in  interference,  amounting  at  times  to  terrorism,  with 
the  voters  at  the  polls. 

The  Hungarians,  who  had  made  a  plucky  fight  for  their 
own  independence,  were,  as  these  Slavic  representatives 
contended,  entirely  unwilling  to  grant  freedom  or  justice 
to  their  immediate  neighbours.  After  reading  these 
pamphlets  and  considering  also  certain  rejoinders  that 
came  from  Magyars  in  America,  I  could  but  conclude  that 
there  was  good  foundation  for  the  protests  of  the  Slavs. 
The  eloquent  appeals  made  by  Apponyi  for  the  cause  of 
world  peace  might,  I  felt,  have  been  more  effective  if  the 
speaker  had  been  able  to  tell  us  that  he  was  using  his  great 
personal  influence  with  his  countrymen  for  maintaining 
within  Hungary  itself  peace  with  justice.  In  common  with 
some  other  New  Yorkers,  I  resigned  from  the  committee, 
and  I  believe  that  Apponyi,  who  had  not  been  permitted 
to  speak  in  Chicago,  left  without  any  formal  farewell 
greetings. 

Some  Generals  and  Others.  In  1897,  a  few  months 
after  the  election  of  President  McKinley,  I  found  myself 
on  the  steamer  St.  Paul  en  route  for  London  via  South- 
ampton. We  had  a  full  and  rather  distinguished  company 
which  included  General  Horace  Porter,  the  new  Ambassa- 
dor for  Paris,  General  Miles,  commander-in-chief  of  the 


298  Varied  Experiences 

army,  Mr.  Osborne,  Consul-General  for  England,  Mr. 
Goudy,  Consul-General  for  France,  and  my  good  friend 
General  Thomas  W.  Hyde  of  Maine.  There  were  also 
some  other  veterans  associated  with  General  Miles.  I 
had  noted  with  some  curiosity  that  among  the  names  on 
the  passenger  list  connected  with  the  title  of  "general" 
were  those  of  Osborne  and  Goudy.  I  asked  General  Miles 
what  service  these  two  "generals"  had  had.  He  replied: 
"Major,  I  thought  I  knew  about  the  men  who  had  won 
the  title  of  general  but  the  careers  of  these  two  officers  are 
quite  unfamiliar.  I  detail  you,  sir,  to  secure  the  record 
and  to  give  me  a  report.  I  ought  to  know  what  service 
they  have  rendered."  I  got  myself  properly  introduced 
by  the  purser  (with  whom  I  had  sailed  before)  to  "  General" 
Osborne.  My  London  House  carried  on  export  business 
and  it  was  quite  in  order  for  me  to  know  the  new  Consul- 
General.  I  found  Osborne  very  ready  to  have  word  with 
somebody  who  could  tell  him  about  conditions  in  London. 
He  had,  it  seems,  never  been  across  the  Atlantic  and  he 
wanted  to  know,  and  needed  to  know,  something  about 
the  methods  and  requirements  of  the  consul's  office,  and 
also,  for  the  sake  of  his  family  (he  had  with  him  wife  and 
children),  the  best  methods  for  establishing  a  home  in 
London.  When  I  had  answered  questions  in  regard  to 
business  and  domestic  matters,  I  came  to  my  official  en- 
quiry. "You  have  served,  General?"  "Yes,"  he  said, 
" I  went  out  with  my  cousin's  regiment."  (I  remembered 
that  his  name  was  William  McKinley  Osborne.)  "Yes," 
I  said,  "the  26th  Ohio,  but  that  was  a  nine  months' 
regiment.  With  what  command  did  you  serve  later?" 
"Oh!"  he  said,  "I  did  not  go  out  after  the  regiment's 
term  had  expired.  I  came  back  as  a  sergeant  and  did  not 
have  the  opportunity  for  further  advancement."  "I 
suppose,  then,"  I  continued,  "that  your  title  of  general 
came  to  you  for  service  on  the  governor's  staff."  "No," 


Some  Generals  and  Others  299 

he  said,  "I  never  did  have  the  title  of  general,  but  when  I 
got  into  politics,  the  boys  remembered  that  I  had  been  in 
the  war  and  either  for  fun  or  for  political  convenience 
they  dubbed  me  with  the  name  of  general  and  the  title  has 
stuck."  "That  may  be  all  right  in  Ohio,"  I  said,  "but 
you  will  not  find  it  wise  to  cany  any  such  title  in  London. 
As  an  important  representative  of  the  United  States,  you 
might  find  yourself  invited  to  the  Army  and  Navy  Club, 
for  instance,  and  there  you  would  be  questioned  in  regard 
to  your  military  experience.  It  would  cause  annoyance 
not  only  to  yourself,  but  to  all  of  us  to  have  an  English 
officer  criticizing  the  American  representative  for  carry- 
ing a  bogus  title."  There  was  not  really  much  probability 
of  the  veterans  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Club  interesting 
themselves  in  the  American  Consul  but  the  chance  served 
well  enough  to  emphasize  my  point.  Mr.  Osborne  thanked 
me  for  my  advice  and  promised  that  the  title,  carelessly 
printed  in  the  passenger  list,  should  not  be  continued  in 
London. 

The  record  of  Mr.  Goudy  was  very  similar.  I  had  no 
business  or  probability  of  business  with  the  office  of  our 
consul  in  Paris,  and  as  I  found  Goudy  not  only  offish  but 
somewhat  inclined  to  be  bumptious,  I  took  with  him  a 
somewhat  more  decided  stand.  He  it  seems  had  gone  out 
from  his  native  State  (Indiana)  with  a  nine  months' 
regiment  and  had  returned  as  second  lieutenant.  As  was 
the  case  with  Osborne,  he  had  seen  no  further  military 
service  and  his  title  of  "general"  had  in  like  manner  come 
to  him  as  a  political  convenience  for  a  man  who  had  been 
in  charge  of  the  State  Republican  Committee.  "Mr. 
Goudy,"  I  said,  "you  must  bear  in  mind  that  Paris  has 
always  been  a  military  capital.  In  addition  to  the  resident 
officers  of  the  French  army,  there  are  connected  with  the 
staffs  of  the  several  ambassadors  or  as  sojourners  in  Paris 
distinguished  soldiers  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  The 


-. 
300  Varied  Experiences 

military  standard  is  exacting.  If,"  I  continued  (drawing 
I  admit  somewhat  on  my  imagination)  "some  dis- 
tinguished general  should  find  himself  in  social  relations 
with  a  man  carrying  the  title  without  warrant,  it  would  be 
considered  grounds  for  a  challenge.  You  would  be  called 
upon  either  to  fight  a  duel  or  to  accept  social  contumely." 
"Why,  Major,"  said  Goudy,  "I  had  not  realized  that  any 
such  serious  consequences  could  follow.  You  know  that 
these  titles  are  used  with  us  (that  is  to  say  in  the  West) 
rather  loosely,  but  certainly  I  should  not  wish  to  do  any- 
thing contrary  to  the  standard  of  Paris." 

I  doubt  whether  he  would  have  ventured  to  put  "gen- 
eral" on  cards  for  use  in  Paris,  but  in  order  to  make  sure, 
after  giving  my  report  to  General  Miles,  I  had  a  word 
about  Goudy  with  General  Porter,  whom  I  had  known  as  a 
New  Yorker  and  also  as  past  commander  of  our  New 
York  Loyal  Legion.  "It  is  all  right,  Major,  I  will  see  to 
it,"  said  Porter,  "that  Mr.  Goudy  does  not  pose  as  a 
general  in  Paris." 

Columbia  College  and  University.  In  the  late  fifties, 
when  my  father's  place  of  business  was  at  321  Broadway, 
the  south  windows  of  his  office  overlooked  the  beautiful 
grounds  of  the  New  York  Hospital,  which  then  fronted 
upon  Broadway.  I  had  friends  among  the  sons  of  the 
professors  of  Columbia  College,  which  at  that  time  held 
the  territory  assigned  to  its  predecessor,  the  old  King's 
College,  covering  what  is  now  College  Place  and  extending, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  nearly  to  the  river.  Crossing 
the  green  of  the  hospital  and  the  line  which  marked  the 
grounds  of  the  lower  College  Place,  I  could  reach  the 
campus  of  the  college.  I  remember  hearing  old  Thorburn, 
the  seed  dealer,  who  knew  many  things  and  whose  conver- 
sation gave  the  impression  of  knowing  everything,  say 
that  the  acres  of  the  hospital  and  the  college  comprised 
more  varieties  of  trees  than  could  be  found  within  the  same 


Columbia  College  and  University      301 

extent  of  ground  anywhere  in  the  Northern  States.  The 
President  of  the  college  was  Dr.  Charles  King,  who  was 
succeeded  in  1864  by  F.  A.  P.  Barnard.  I  recall  the  name 
of  Professor  Hackley  of  the  mathematical  faculty,  whose 
son  Victor  was  in  those  days  one  of  my  playmates,  and  of 
Professor  Anthon,  then  a  young  instructor,  who  was  just 
beginning  his  famous  series  of  annotated  classical  text- 
books, which,  meeting  as  they  did  the  needs  of  generations 
of  the  lazier  students,  brought  fame  and  fortune  to  their 
editor. 

I  renewed  my  relations  with  Columbia  in  the  spring  of 
1860,  when,  graduating  from  the  Columbia  Grammar 
School  (I  recall  with  satisfaction  that  I  was  at  the  head  of 
the  Greek  and  Latin  classes  and  second  in  mathematics), 
I  was  admitted  as  a  freshman  for  the  class  of  '64.  Under 
the  influence  of  Professor  Anthon,  who  was  the  owner 
of  the  grammar  school,  the  matriculation  examinations  of 
the  college  for  the  pupils  coming  up  from  the  school,  and 
particularly  for  those  who  had  won  honours  in  the  school, 
were  but  nominal.  I  was  called  upon  to  do  but  little  with 
the  professor  of  Latin,  Drisler,  and  absolutely  nothing  in 
the  Greek  room,  which  was  presided  over  by  Anthon  him- 
self. I  had,  therefore,  a  feeling  of  annoyance,  and  as  if  I 
was  not  being  treated  with  full  justice,  when  a  compara- 
tively youthful  instructor  named  Van  Amringe  insisted 
upon  putting  me  through  a  real  examination  in  mathe- 
matics. Fortunately,  although  the  questions  were  un- 
expected, I  stood  the  test,  but  at  this  date,  fifty-five  years 
later,  I  still  find  myself  giving  an  occasional  growl  at  my 
dear  old  friend,  now  Dean  emeritus  of  the  college  and  the 
only  survivor  of  the  faculty  of  those  earlier  years,  for  the 
botheration  that  he  brought  upon  the  small  student  of 
1860. 

Fifty-two  years  after  I  had  succeeded  in  meeting  the 
requirements  of  my  old  friend  Van  Amringe,  Columbia, 


302  Varied  Experiences 

in  which,  owing  to  the  breakdown  of  my  eyes,  I  had  never 
done  any  work  and  from  which  I  had,  therefore,  not  been 
able  to  secure  a  bachelor's  degree,  was  good  enough  to 
compliment  me  with  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Letters.  I 
had  already  secured  this  honour  from  Pennsylvania,  but  it 
was,  of  course,  very  satisfactory  to  have  the  recognition 
come  from  a  faculty  many  of  the  members  of  which  were 
old-time  friends  and  associates. 

I  found  myself  in  association  during  the  function  of 
June,  1912,  with  a  representative  and  curiously  diverse 
group  of  men  who  were  also  at  the  time  securing  a  Colum- 
bia "label."  The  new  "Doctors"  included  Chief  Justice 
White  of  the  Supreme  Court,  Colonel  Goethals,  who  was 
bringing  to  triumphant  completion  at  Panama  the  great 
engineering  feat  of  the  century,  Dr.  Hibben,  the  good- 
looking,  newly  inaugurated  President  of  Princeton,  and 
Oscar  Underwood,  who  as  leader  of  the  Democratic 
majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives  was  giving 
evidence  of  the  qualities  of  a  statesman.  It  would  have 
been  difficult  to  bring  five  men  together  whose  achieve- 
ments great  or  small  had  been  arrived  at  in  such  a  variety 
of  channels  of  activity.  While  we  were  sitting  in  the  room 
of  Columbia's  President,  waiting  for  the  function,  I  had 
an  amusing  little  tilt  with  the  Chief  Justice.  He  was 
just  old  enough  to  have  seen  service  in  the  Confederate 
ranks  during  the  Civil  War  and  had  attained  the  rank  of  a 
sergeant.  In  some  mention  of  his  earlier  experiences  in 
his  home  State,  Louisiana,  he  referred  to  a  battle  in  which 
he  had  been  engaged  as  one  of  the  many  "Confederate 
victories."  I  asked  whether  "His  Honour"  was  speaking 
with  the  authority  of  the  Supreme  Court  or  with  the 
fading  memory  of  a  Confederate  veteran.  "Major,"  he 
answered,  "  I  claim  no  better  authority  for  my  memory  of 
matters  of  half  a  century  back  than  I  should  give  to  your 
own.  What  correction  have  you  to  suggest?"  I  then 


Bowdoin  College  303 

submitted  my  suggestion.  I  contended  that  the  fighting 
in  question,  at  which  I  also  happened  to  be  present  (as 
adjutant  in  my  regiment),  had  been  in  substance  a  success 
for  the  Federal  troops.  After  which  statement  we  ''had  it 
out"  for  a  few  minutes,  much  to  the  amusement  of  the 
men  about  us  who  had  "grown  up  since  the  war." 

I  was  impressed  later  at  the  commemoration  lunch 
with  the  references  that  were  made  as  if  to  men  of  an- 
tiquity to  the  graduates  of  the  "early  eighties."  It  hap- 
pened that  President  Butler  and  President  Hibben  were 
(each  in  his  own  college)  graduates  of  1882  and  it  seemed 
to  be  the  impression  on  the  part  of  several  at  least  of  the 
speakers  that  it  was  hardly  civil  to  think  of  any  classes  or 
events  back  of  the  graduation  of  their  own  President. 
As  far  as  I  could  ascertain  from  the  words  spoken,  there 
was  nobody  present  from  the  class  that  should  have  been 
my  own.  1864  seemed  to  belong  to  a  very  shadowy  past 
indeed. 

Bowdoin  College.  When  I  was  in  my  fiftieth  year, 
I  received,  with  a  full  appreciation  of  the  compliment, 
an  honorary  degree  from  Bowdoin  College.  I  had  no 
personal  acquaintances  with  the  trustees  or  the  faculty, 
and  I  had  been  looking  forward  from  year  to  year  to 
making  the  opportunity  to  visit  Brunswick,  the  birth- 
place of  my  father.  The  college  had  given  a  similar 
degree  to  my  father  in  his  fiftieth  year,  and  in  speaking 
to  him  of  the  incident,  he  had  said,  naively,  that  the  only 
service  that  he  could  remember  ever  having  rendered  to 
the  institution  was  that  when  a  boy  of  twelve  (just  before 
he  left  Brunswick  for  Boston  and  New  York),  he  had  had 
the  opportunity  of  giving  the  alarm  of  fire.  It  was  the 
noon  hour,  and  the  roof  had  been  ignited  by  the  blowing 
over  of  a  fire-pot  which  had  been  left  by  careless  roofers 
when  they  went  home  for  dinner.  I  went  to  Brunswick 
to  receive  my  degree  and  came  into  relations  with  that 


304  Varied  Experiences 

most  admirable  college  president,  capable  author,  and 
wide-minded  citizen,  President  Hyde,  and  with  the  mem- 
bers of  the  small  but  very  efficient  college.  I  was  also 
called  upon  to  give  a  talk  to  the  students,  which  I  devoted 
to  matters  connected  with  the  history  of  the  Civil  War. 

Having  been  accepted  into  the  Brunswick  circle,  I  have 
had  the  privilege  since  1894  °f  dining  with  the  alumni  and 
have  come  into  cordial  sympathy  with  the  purposes  of  the 
sturdy  little  New  England  college  and  with  the  character 
of  the  citizens  that  it  has  sent  out  to  New  York  and  else- 
where. It  is  in  the  Bowdoin  circle  that  I  have  come  into 
personal  relations  with  men  like  President  Hyde,  James 
McKeon,  Admiral  Peary,  General  Thomas  H.  Hubbard, 
and  other  good  citizens.  General  Hubbard's  life  has  closed 
within  a  few  weeks  of  the  writing  of  these  lines.  I  had 
met  him  during  the  Red  River  campaign  in  Louisiana, 
where  he  commanded — and  commanded  well — first  his 
Maine  regiment  and  later  a  brigade.  I  came  into  associa- 
tion with  him  later  in  the  gatherings  of  the  Loyal  Legion 
in  New  York  and  in  the  Century  Club,  and  I  found  a 
third  common  interest  in  meeting  him  at  the  dinners  of 
the  Bowdoin  men,  by  whom  he  was  held  in  high  regard  as 
the  patron  saint  of  the  college.  Thomas  Hubbard  was  a 
good  all-around  citizen.  He  seems  to  have  done  well 
whatever  he  undertook  to  do,  and  he  undertook  to  do  good 
things.  He  was  a  good  soldier,  making  the  most  of  his 
opportunities;  a  good  lawyer,  coming  to  the  front  of  his 
profession  and  utilizing  his  opportunities  and  his  relations 
with  wealthy  clients  for  steering  moneys  to  channels  where 
they  could  be  most  useful ;  and  a  loyal  friend  to  all  in  need, 
and  particularly  to  the  Maine  men  and  to  the  graduates  of 
Bowdoin. 

In  the  college  circle  I  was  adopted  into  the  class  of  1864. 
I  remember  at  one  of  the  meetings,  when  the  representa- 
tives of  the  different  classes  were  making  confessions  of 


University  of  Pittsburg  305 

the  sins  of  their  respective  years,  there  happened  to  be  no 
graduate  present  of  1864.  The  duty  fell  upon  me,  there- 
fore, to  report  upon  the  sins  of  the  class,  and  I  made 
confession  of  such  a  serious  lot  of  misdeeds  of  my  class- 
mates that  they  had  their  hands  full  later  in  explaining 
away  the  wicked  imagination  of  their  honorary  member. 
University  of  Pittsburg.  I  should  not  wish  to  close 
this  chapter  of  experiences  without  making  due  recogni- 
tion to  the  graceful  hospitality  of  the  University  of  Pitts- 
burg (formerly  the  University  of  Western  Pennsylvania), 
which  some  twenty  years  back  was  interested  in  including 
my  name  in  the  list  of  its  Doctors  of  Literature.  I  have, 
since  becoming  a  member  of  the  University,  made  several 
visits  to  Pittsburg,  the  first  for  the  purpose  of  receiving 
the  degree  and  of  making  acknowledgment  in  due  course 
in  the  form  of  an  historical  address  to  the  students.  I 
have  always  found  myself  impressed  with  the  twofold 
energy  of  this  wonderful  city.  Below,  along  the  banks  of 
the  river,  is  the  long  series  of  furnaces  from  which  are 
poured  forth  the  great  steel  constructions  that  make  so 
large  a  contribution  to  the  wealth  of  the  country.  Above, 
on  a  kind  of  Olympus,  are  grouped  together  the  buildings 
of  the  University,  the  Carnegie  Institute,  the  Phipps 
Botanical  Gardens,  the  art  galleries,  etc.  From  this 
upper  height,  one  looks  over  the  titanic  energy  of  the 
operations  of  the  furnaces,  which  are  not  permitted  to 
interfere  in  any  way  with  the  intellectual  and  artistic 
processes  that  are  developed  in  the  upper  plane.  But  on 
this  plane  also  there  is  full  evidence  of  energy.  Pittsburg 
has,  under  the  initiative  and  with  the  liberality  of  its  enter- 
prising citizens,  men  like  Carnegie,  Dr.  Holland,  Colonel 
Church,  and  others,  maintained  a  leading  position  among 
American  cities  in  its  support  of  art  undertakings  as  well 
as  of  scientific  training.  The  whole  combination  of  fur- 
naces, city  universities,  and  art  galleries  make  together  a 

30 


306  Varied  Experiences 

wonderful  and  typical  epitome  of  American  life.  For  the 
suggestion  which  included  my  name  in  the  list  of  scholars 
honoured  by  the  university,  I  was,  I  understand,  indebted 
to  my  good  friend  Colonel  Samuel  Harden  Church,  who 
is  himself  an  example  of  the  Pittsburg  method  of  combin- 
ing two  sets  of  energies.  Church  is  one  of  the  efficient 
railroad  managers  of  the  country;  but  he  has  made  him- 
self an  authority  on  certain  divisions  of  English  history, 
and  has  so  far  interested  himself  in  executive  work  con- 
nected with  scientific  undertakings  that  he  is  at  this  time 
in  charge  of  the  executive  work  of  the  Carnegie  Institute. 
He  represents  a  fine  type  of  the  typical,  effective,  public- 
spirited  American. 

Loyal  Legion.  One  other  association  calls  for  reference 
in  this  chapter,  the  subjects  of  which  are,  I  admit,  suffi- 
ciently varied.  I  was  pleased  a  few  years  after  the  war  to 
have  an  opportunity  of  accepting  membership  in  the 
Loyal  Legion,  the  association  of  veteran  officers  of  the 
Civil  War.  This  association  was  brought  into  being  in 
Philadelphia  a  few  years  after  the  war  with  a  purpose 
similar  to  that  which  influenced  Alexander  Hamilton  and 
other  of  the  officers  associated  with  Washington  in  or- 
ganizing in  1786  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati.  It  seemed 
proper  that  the  memories  of  the  war  should  be  preserved 
by  the  men  who  had  done  their  part  in  saving  the  Republic 
and  that  the  association  should  be  so  organized  that  with 
the  inclusion  later  of  the  sons  of  the  veterans  the  traditions 
of  the  fight  for  the  Union  could  be  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation.  There  is  a  pleasure  in  meeting 
once  or  twice  in  the  course  of  the  year  men  some  of  whom 
one  meets  in  no  other  relations  and  whose  presence  and 
conversations  recall  the  campaign  experiences  of  half  a 
century  back.  It  is  interesting  to  see  men  whose  years 
now  range  from  seventy-two  to  ninety  amusing  themselves 
towards  midnight  with  the  army  songs  which  they  had 


Lectures  307 

learned  fifty  years  back  as  youngsters.  The  Legion  has 
always  contained  a  full  representation  of  citizens  who  had 
not  only  done  their  part  as  soldiers,  but  whose  services 
have  been  valuable  to  the  Republic  in  later  years  in  other 
directions  of  activity.  The  sadness  of  such  an  association 
is  the  fact  that  at  each  gathering,  and  increasingly,  of 
course,  during  the  later  years,  there  are  more  empty 
chairs.  The  men  who  as  public-spirited  youngsters  did 
their  part  in  saving  the  Republic  are  now,  of  necessity, 
rapidly  passing  away.  Some  years  back,  at  the  time  when 
I  was  complimented  with  election  as  senior  vice-comman- 
der of  the  Legion,  I  had  occasion  to  give  a  talk  to  the 
"boys."  They  had  for  fifty  years  been  telling  stories  to 
each  other  of  the  way  in  which  they  had  saved  the  Repub- 
lic, and  in  this  address  I  was  interested  in  giving  them  a 
suggestion  in  another  direction.  I  took  the  ground  that 
we,  the  veterans,  had  not  saved  the  Republic  at  all.  We 
had  done  our  part  to  be  sure,  but  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
service  of  certain  noteworthy  citizens,  men  like  the  Presi- 
dent to  begin  with,  the  great  citizens  who  worked  with  the 
President  for  the  organization  of  the  state  and  the  main- 
tenance of  the  armies  in  the  field,  and  the  ministers  abroad, 
particularly  those  at  the  fighting  points  in  Paris  and  in 
London,  the  Republic  would,  notwithstanding  our  valiant 
efforts  on  the  firing  line,  have  been  broken  up.  My  lecture 
was  entitled  "The  Men  Behind  the  Guns,"  and  while,  by 
implication,  it  carried  some  criticism  on  the  vanity  of  our 
veterans,  it  was  well  received. 

Lectures.  During  the  twenty-five  years  immediately 
succeeding  the  war,  the  veterans  were  in  superabundance 
throughout  the  country.  People  were  fatigued  with  the 
war  and  found  themselves  increasingly  annoyed  with  the 
burdens  of  taxation  produced  by  the  war.  They  wanted 
to  hear  nothing  more  about  slavery  and  were  not  inter- 
ested in  the  various  influences  which  had,  in  the  first  place, 


308  Varied  Experiences 

delayed  and  then  had  finally  brought  about  the  success  of 
the  North.  During  the  past  ten  years,  I  have,  however, 
found  a  very  different  relation  on  the  part  of  the  com- 
munity at  large  to  the  veterans  who  are  still  physically 
capable  of  recalling  their  experiences.  A  generation  has 
grown  up  which  knows  about  the  war  only  as  a  kind  of 
legend.  It  is  not  yet  as  clearly  recorded  in  the  school- 
book  history  as  were  the  contests  of  the  Revolution,  and 
the  men  who  had  been  born  during  the  war,  or  had  grown 
up  just  this  side  of  the  decision  at  Appomattox,  found 
themselves  without  any  precise  knowledge  as  to  even  the 
larger  events  of  the  struggle.  Those  of  us,  therefore,  who 
are  able  to  give  some  kind  of  account  as  to  what  had 
brought  about  the  war,  the  nature  of  the  anti-slavery 
contest,  the  issues  between  the  statesmen  and  political 
leaders  prior  to  the  beginning  of  hostilities,  the  election  of 
Lincoln,  the  leadership  of  Lincoln  during  the  war,  and  the 
final  events  of  the  war  settlement,  have  been  in  increasing 
demand  as  speakers  to  audiences  made  up  of  this  later 
generation.  I  have  found  myself  interested  in  giving 
lectures  from  year  to  year  in  the  historical  courses  of 
institutions  like  Princeton,  Columbia,  Yale,  Dartmouth, 
Wesleyan,  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  Mt.  Holyoke,  etc., 
and  the  request  of  the  instructor  in  charge  of  the  depart- 
ment would  take  some  such  shape  as:  "Now,  Major,  I 
have  given  the  students  the  outline  of  events.  I  want  you 
to  fill  in  the  atmosphere."  I  find  it  decidedly  interesting 
to  talk  to  the  right  kind  of  American  student  who  does  not 
know  and  who  wants  to  know  just  what  it  was  that  his 
grandfather  or  his  father  had  been  fighting  for  and  what 
was  brought  about  by  the  fighting.  I  have  the  feeling  also 
that  a  certain  duty  rests  upon  the  man  of  one  generation 
to  pass  on  to  his  successors  a  record  as  faithful  as  he  knows 
how  to  make  it  of  the  work  that  has  been  done  by  the  men 
of  his  own  time.  No  one  account  will  be  trustworthy,  but 


Lectures  309 

a  number  of  accounts  taken  together  and  fairly  collated 
do  go  to  make  the  current  history  of  the  time.  It  would 
have  been  of  service  and  of  interest  to  the  men  of  my 
generation  if  our  fathers  and  grandfathers  had  been  good 
enough  to  hand  down  to  us  fuller  personal  records  of  their 
experiences  in  the  War  of  1812  and  that  of  the  Revolution. 


CHAPTER  XH 
WorK  on  tHe  Grand  Jury 

1879-1914 

I  HAVE  been  called  upon  to  serve  on  the  Grand  Jury  dur- 
ing along  series  of  years.  My  term  began  in  1879  and  at 
this  time  (1914)  I  have  just  completed  my  service,  being 
entitled  to  retirement  under  the  age  limit.  As  is  always  the 
case  with  any  juror  of  long  service,  I  have  had  my  full  share 
of  responsibility  as  foreman ;  and  in  directing  from  time  to 
time  the  investigations  of  the  jury  into  the  work  of  the 
city  government,  I  have  not  infrequently  found  myself  in 
conflict  with  Tammany  officials.  It  was  partly  because 
my  name  had  become  known  in  Grand  Jury  investigations 
that  I  was  asked  to  serve  as  a  member  of  the  Committee  of 
Fifteen,  the  work  of  which  is  referred  to  on  another  page. 
The  Grand  Jury  service  is  exacting  and  in  more  ways  than 
one  troublesome  for  a  citizen  whose  days  are  fairly  well 
occupied  with  business  and  with  other  interests.  The 
foreman  has  the  responsibility  for  the  selection  and  direc- 
tion of  the  investigations  of  the  jury  and  it  is  not  possible 
for  him  to  secure,  as  can  the  other  members,  freedom  for 
one  or  more  days  in  the  week.  He  is  also  obliged  to  give 
to  the  shaping  of  the  day's  work,  and  to  clearing  up  the 
record  after  the  session,  a  good  deal  more  time  than  is 
required  from  his  fellow-members.  The  work  is,  however, 

310 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  311 

interesting.  It  enables  a  man  to  secure  an  understanding 
that  would  not  otherwise  come  to  him  of  the  machinery 
of  city  government  and  of  the  methods,  good,  bad,  and 
indifferent,  of  individual  officials.  He  secures  also  a 
picture — and  a  very  sad  picture — of  the  amount  of  trouble 
that  persists  in  the  community  and  that  shadows  the  lives 
of  a  great  number  of  unfortunates,  men  and  women  who 
are  not  less  but  more  unfortunate  because  their  actions 
have  been  criminal  and  their  continued  existence  is  really  a 
nuisance  to  the  community. 

The  routine  work  of  the  Grand  Jury  has  to  do  with  the 
dismissal  on  the  one  hand  of  unsubstantiated  complaints 
against  persons  who  have  been  brought  under  charges 
before  the  city  magistrates  or  in  other  ways,  and  the  fram- 
ing of  indictments  against  such  of  these  persons  as  in  the 
judgment  of  not  less  than  twelve  men  of  the  twenty-three 
ought  to  be  brought  for  trial  in  the  criminal  court.  It  is 
essential  that  this  routine  work  be  performed  without 
delay  so  that  people  under  arrest  secure  prompt  action 
in  their  cases  in  one  way  or  the  other,  as  otherwise  the 
Tombs  Prison  and  the  House  of  Detention  become  over- 
crowded and  serious  injustice  is  caused  to  people  a  number 
of  whom  are  innocent  of  crime.  Apart,  however,  from  this 
routine  business  or  whenever  the  docket  of  impending 
cases  is  sufficiently  clear,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Grand  Jury 
to  make  investigation  as  to  the  methods  of  work  in  the 
several  departments  of  the  city  government  and  as  to  any 
conditions  in  the  city  which  affect  the  public  welfare. 
During  the  thirty  days  in  which  it  is  in  session,  the  Grand 
Jury  acts  as  the  representative  of  the  great  body  of  the 
citizens  of  the  county.  It  can  call  before  it  any  one  of  the 
city  officials,  not  excluding  the  mayor  himself,  and  can 
institute  investigations  into  their  official  action  and  the 
discharge  of  their  responsibilities.  In  later  years,  it  has 
been  found  necessary,  in  order  that  these  general  investi- 


3i2  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

gations  should  not  be  neglected  while  the  routine  matter  of 
passing  upon  persons  under  charges  is  being  duly  cared 
for,  to  keep  in  session  each  month  two  grand  juries  and 
from  time  to  time  there  has  been  requirement  for  not  less 
than  three. 

The  list  of  citizens  liable  for  Grand  Jury  service  had  up 
to  1910  been  restricted  to  one  thousand,  and  for  a  series  of 
years  this  number  had  not  been  increased  although  with 
the  growth  of  the  city  the  responsibilities  placed  upon  the 
grand  juries  had  been  enormously  added  to.  I  took  occa- 
sion as  foreman  as  far  back  as  1898  to  call  attention  in  a 
presentment  to  the  serious  increase  in  the  labours  placed 
upon  the  Grand  Jury  and  to  the  importance  of  making  an 
addition  to  the  lists  of  citizens  available  for  the  service. 
Other  foremen  repeated  my  recommendations  and  finally, 
in  1910,  the  list  of  grand  jurors  was  raised  to  two  thousand. 

Question  arises  from  time  to  time  as  to  the  possible 
superfluousness  of  the  work  of  the  Grand  Jury.  So  able  a 
jurist  and  so  public-spirited  a  citizen  as  ex-President  Taft 
has  recently  expressed  his  opinion  that  the  Grand  Jury 
could  safely  be  abolished.  I  am  myself  of  opinion  that  it  is 
called  upon  for  a  good  deal  of  work  which  could  be  done 
certainly  as  effectively  and  with  much  less  expense  of  time 
by  smaller  bodies  or  by  individual  officials.  It  is  absurd 
to  have  twenty-three  representative  citizens  giving  hours 
of  time  to  deciding  whether  or  not  a  coloured  gentleman 
was  a  little  worse  for  liquor  and  had  or  had  not  threatened 
his  friend  with  a  razor.  Charges  of  this  kind  for  petty 
assault,  or  for  threatened  assault,  or  for  carrying  concealed 
weapons,  or  for  the  thousand  and  one  misdemeanours  that 
darken,  or  lighten  up,  as  the  case  may  be,  the  life  of  a  big 
city,  can  be  more  economically,  and  on  the  whole  more 
effectively,  taken  care  of  by  properly  selected  magistrates 
than  by  a  body  of  twenty- three  citizens.  The  institution 
ought,  however,  not  to  be  brought  to  an  end. 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  313 

I  am  of  opinion  that  the  authority  given  to  a  selected 
group  of  citizens  to  look  into  the  methods  under  which  the 
business  of  their  city  is  carried  on  in  its  various  depart- 
ments and  by  its  different  officials  is  often  a  very  valuable 
authority  indeed,  and  in  fact,  during  the  past  years  its 
value  has  been  proved  by  not  a  few  instances.  There  is 
no  other  way  in  which  citizens  not  holding  office  can  bring 
criticism  directly  to  bear  upon  the  officials  who,  while 
selected  by  the  body  of  citizens,  do  from  time  to  time  forget 
during  the  years  of  their  office  whence  their  own  authority 
is  derived  and  what  the  real  purpose  of  their  officeholding 
may  be.  It  may  easily  happen  that  these  officials  feel  a 
larger  responsibility  to  the  leaders  of  the  political  body 
through  whom  their  positions  have  been  secured  than  to 
the  interests  of  the  people  of  the  community  whose  ser- 
vants they  really  are.  When  the  Grand  Jury  has  been 
freed  from  petty  and  trivial  matters  with  which  it  should 
never  have  been  charged,  it  will  have  more  time  and  better 
opportunity  to  maintain  and  develop  its  functions  as  the 
watchdog  of  the  interests  of  the  citizens  at  large. 

In  the  early  eighties,  a  jury  of  which  I  was  foreman  was 
called  upon  to  investigate  the  failure  of  Grant  &  Ward, 
which  had  on  several  grounds  excited  a  widespread 
interest.  General  Grant,  recently  retired  from  the  Presi- 
dency, was  a  special  partner  in  the  firm  of  which  the  active 
management  was  in  the  hands  of  Ferdinand  Ward,  then 
known  as  the  "young  Napoleon  of  finance."  Two  sons 
of  the  General  were  associated  as  active  partners,  and 
indeed  a  large  purpose  in  the  General's  mind  in  entering 
upon  the  undertaking  was  to  secure  a  business  opening  for 
his  boys.  The  fact  that  the  Marine  Bank,  which  had 
through  the  operations  of  Grant  &  Ward  been  brought  to 
insolvency,  had  on  deposit  moneys  belonging  to  the  city, 
gave  to  the  jury  the  right  to  look  into  the  affairs  both  of  the 
bank  and  of  the  firm.  Fish,  the  president  of  the  Marine 


314  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

Bank,  and  Ferdinand  Ward  were,  as  it  was  shown,  in  close 
alliance  in  their  operations,  operations  which  involved  a 
large  use,  and  in  the  end  the  loss,  of  great  sums  of  money 
belonging  to  other  people.  Grant  &  Ward  had  during  the 
last  year  of  their  business  secured  investments  or  sub- 
scriptions from  a  number  of  people,  including  some  well- 
known  and  experienced  financiers,  in  what  they  called  the 
"contract  division"  of  their  undertakings.  Ward  gave 
out  to  favoured  friends  in  whispered  communications  the 
information  that  through  the  influence  of  their  special 
partner  (General  Grant)  the  firm  had  been  able  to  secure 
some  exceptionally  valuable  government  contracts.  It 
was,  as  he  emphasized,  essential  if  this  business  were  to  be 
continued  and  if  the  reputation  of  the  General  were  to  be 
protected,  that  no  information  should  come  to  the  public 
in  regard  to  these  profitable  relations  with  the  government. 
The  people  to  whom  was  given  the  opportunity  of  making 
investments  in  these  contracts  were  told  that  they  would 
have  to  take  the  business,  so  to  speak,  on  trust  and  that  it 
was  not  possible  to  give  any  information  whatsoever  as 
to  the  details. 

At  the  time  the  jury  took  up  the  investigation  of  the 
business,  Ward,  who  had  been  tried  and  convicted  for 
obtaining  money  under  false  pretences,  and  I  believe  also 
for  forgery,  was  already  under  sentence  for  a  prison  term. 
We  secured  a  delay  in  the  sending  of  Ward  to  Sing  Sing  in 
order  that  he  might  give  testimony  before  us.  Ward  had 
at  the  time  nothing  further  to  fear  for  himself  and  his 
testimony  was  curiously  frank  and  was  both  intelligent 
and  effective.  He  appeared  before  us  and  identified  from 
the  books  of  the  firm  which  were  then  in  the  control  of  the 
court  the  famous  record  of  contracts.  He  explained  that 
this  belonged  to  what  were  called  the  private  books  of  the 
concern  and  that  all  the  entries  were  in  his  own  script. 
The  book  was  labelled,  "Special  contracts.  Personal. 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  315 

F.  W."  The  entry  on  the  first  page  carried  some  fairly 
high  number,  say  157.  I  asked,  "  Is  this  the  first  record  of 
contracts?"  "Yes."  "Where  is  the  record  covering  the 
earlier  contracts,  1-156?"  "There  is  no  such  record  be- 
cause there  were  no  such  contracts."  "This  entry  covers 
then  the  first  contract  in  the  series?  Why  is  it  number 
157  instead  of  I?"  "It  looked  better.  It  gave  the  im- 
pression of  a  continuing  business."  The  entries  were  very 
brief,  giving  merely  the  figures  of  the  investments  and  of 
the  results,  but  no  details  of  operations.  The  figures  read 
somewhat  as  follows:  "Contract  157.  Investors  G.  &  W. 
$5000.;  M.  B.  (Marine  Bank)  $5000.  F.  (Fish)  $5000; 
N.  L.  T.  (at  that  time  city  chamberlain)  $5000,"  and  other 
initials  standing,  as  in  the  case  of  T.,  for  well-known  citi- 
zens of  financial  responsibility.  On  the  line  below  was 
specified  at  a  date,  say,  four  months  later,  the  results  or 
proceeds  of  this  contract.  Net  proceeds  say  (I  am  speak- 
ing of  course  from  memory  and  only  approximately), 
$23,350.25.  This  amount  was  divided  below,  in  figures 
written  in  red  ink,  into  the  shares  belonging  to  the  several 
investors  with  the  initials  repeated,  and  the  "profits" 
having  been  so  apportioned,  the  record  of  contract  number 
157  was  balanced  and  closed.  The  succeeding  entries 
were  precisely  similar  in  form,  the  initials  varying  as  differ- 
ent investors  came  in.  Certain  initials  were,  however, 
repeated  pretty  regularly  from  contract  to  contract. 
' '  What  did  this  business,  number  1 57,  represent ?  "  "  There 
was  no  business. ' '  ' '  Do  you  mean  that  nothing  was  bought 
or  sold?  or  that  no  service  was  rendered  by  the  firm  to  the 
government  or  to  other  parties?"  "None  whatever." 
"How  then  did  you  secure  the  proceeds  specified  as  over 
$23,000?"  "There  were  no  proceeds."  "How  then  did 
you  arrive  at  the  figures  of  these  proceeds  written  here  in 
red  ink?"  "I  wrote  them  in  and  reported  accordingly  to 
the  investors."  "Did  these  investors  draw  the  moneys 


316  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

that  were  placed  to  their  credit?"  "No,  they  were  so 
pleased  with  the  returns  secured  that  in  nearly  every  case 
they  asked  us  to  re-invest  these  moneys  in  further  or  con- 
tinuing contracts."  "  Did  General  Grant  have  any  know- 
ledge of  the  manner  in  which  his  name  was  being  used  for 
this  so-called  contract  business?"  "Not  the  slightest. 
If  the  General  had  known,  the  business  would  have  been 
brought  to  an  end  at  once."  "  Did  his  sons  have  access  to 
these  books? "  "No,  it  was  not  expected  that  the  younger 
partners  would  demand  the  right  to  examine  these  special 
records."  "Did  these  sons  then  have  any  knowledge  on 
their  part  as  to  the  manner  in  which  their  father's  name 
was  being  used?"  "No  precise  knowledge.  They  prob- 
ably had  some  impression  that  we  were  emphasizing  to  its 
full  value  the  influence  of  the  ex-President."  "Did  the 
General  ever  visit  the  office?"  "Not  very  often;  I  used  to 
report  to  him  from  time  to  time  and  would  now  and  then 
show  him  the  figures  of  our  monthly  business." 

Letters  of  General  Grant  which  had  been  found  with  the 
papers  of  the  firm  were  placed  before  the  jury.  They  were 
quite  characteristic  of  the  simple-hearted  confidence  of 
the  man.  They  expressed  his  great  gratification  that  he 
had  been  able  to  bring  his  sons  into  association  with  so 
able  a  financial  leader  as  Mr.  Ward.  "  What  use  was  made 
of  the  moneys  secured  from  these  several  investors  if  you 
did  not  apply  them  to  any  government  undertakings?" 
"The  moneys  were  needed  for  the  general  undertakings 
of  the  firm.  We  were  busy  at  that  time  with  certain  South 
American  investments  which  seemed  to  be  very  promising 
but  which  in  the  end  went  wrong.  It  was  the  failure  of 
these  South  American  schemes  that  finally  brought  the 
firm  into  trouble."  "Were  you  ever  called  upon  to  repay 
the  moneys  that  had  been  invested  ?  "  "  Yes,  but  not  often 
during  the  first  part  of  the  year.  Three  or  four  months 
before  the  firm  stopped  payment,  A.  B.  (and  he  named  a 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  317 

well-known  citizen)  called  with  the  word  that  he  would 
like  to  have  the  amount  that  was  then  standing  to  his 
credit,  something  like  $20,000,  and  I  ordered  the  book- 
keeper to  draw  a  check  for  the  amount.  The  bookkeeper 
signalled  to  me  over  the  head  of  the  caller  that  we  had  no 
such  balance  available,  but  under  my  signalled  instruc- 
tions, he  went  off  to  draw  the  check,  an  operation  which 
took  a  little  time.  During  these  minutes,  I  was  talking  to 
the  investor  and  I  made  reference  to  certain  very  promising 
developments  in  this  contract  business.  By  the  time  the 
cashier  had  returned  with  the  check,  my  visitor  had 
changed  his  mind  about  the  drawing  of  the  money.  He 
said  that  he  would  be  glad  to  have  me  keep  the  money  for 
investment  in  a  contract  that  was  then  pending.  'No! 
No ! '  I  said.  '  We  make  a  selection  in  apportioning  these 
investments.  We  have  plenty  of  friends  who  are  pressing 
us  for  a  chance  to  come  in.  We  do  not  want  the  name  of 
anybody  who  has  shown  lack  of  confidence.  I  cannot 
accept  your  reinvestment.'  And,"  said  Ward,  "the 
man  almost  went  down  on  his  knees  to  beg  me  to  take  back 
the  $20,000  and  finally,  as  a  special  favour,  I  accepted  the 
check  and  tore  it  up,  nodding  to  the  bookkeeper  standing 
in  the  doorway  the  instruction  to  cancel  the  entry." 

Ward  interested  and  amused  us  all  by  his  perfect 
frankness.  He  evidently  felt  a  sense  of  pleasure  in  having 
been  able,  youngster  as  he  was,  to  outwit  a  number  of 
shrewd,  experienced  business  men.  He  was  also  honestly 
desirous  of  clearing  the  record  of  General  Grant.  His  word 
about  the  absolute  ignorance  and  innocence  of  the  ex- 
President  was  thoroughly  confirmed  by  the  letters  from 
Grant  and  also  by  the  testimony  of  the  two  sons.  These 
young  men  impressed  us  as  on  the  whole  rather  obtuse. 
It  was  evident  that  they  had  no  realization  of  the  respon- 
sibility that  had  rested  on  them  for  protecting  the  reputa- 
tion of  their  father. 


318  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

I  was  well  pleased  to  have  had  the  opportunity,  in  a 
special  presentment  or  report  on  the  case  of  Grant  &  Ward, 
of  giving  a  full  quittance  to  my  old  commander  in  this 
serious  matter  of  complicity  with  the  swindling  operations 
of  the  firm.  Grant  had  lost  all  his  savings,  but  his  reputa- 
tion, not  only  with  those  who  knew  him  but  with  the 
community  at  large,  was  untouched. 

I  recall  one  incident  of  interest  in  the  trial  either  of 
Ward  or  of  Fish.  A  check  for  $70,000,  drawn  by  Grant  & 
Ward  upon  the  Marine  Bank,  had  been  presented  for 
deposit  at  some  other  bank  and  the  broker  presenting  it 
wanted  to  draw  against  it  at  once.  The  cashier  receiving 
it  made  enquiry  by  telephone  of  the  Marine  Bank  as  to 
whether  the  check  was  "good,"  that  is  -to  say  whether 
Grant  &  Ward  had  at  that  time  any  such  balance  to  their 
credit.  The  bookkeeper  referred  the  enquiry  to  Fish,  the 
president  of  the  Marine  Bank;  and  the  cashier  of  the  other 
bank  testified:  "I  recognized  and  would  swear  to  the 
identification  of  the  voice  of  Fish  at  the  other  end  of  the 
'phone  making  the  statement  that  the  check  'was  good 
and  would  be  honoured  in  due  course.' '  At  the  time  this 
statement  was  made,  Grant  &  Ward  had  but  an  incon- 
siderable balance  and  the  check  when  presented,  either  for 
certification  or  through  the  Clearing  House,  was  promptly 
dishonoured.  This  evidence  of  the  cashier  as  to  the 
identification  of  Fish's  voice  was  held  as  sufficient  to  con- 
vict Fish  of  conspiracy  with  Ward  to  secure  money  on 
false  pretences.  The  jury  was  at  first  rather  unwilling 
to  believe  that  identification  of  a  voice  coming  by  'phone 
could  be  relied  upon.  I  was  told  that  it  was  the  first 
instance,  at  least  in  New  York,  in  which  such  an  identifica- 
tion of  a  voice  through  the  telephone  was  accepted  as 
trustworthy  or  as  legal  evidence. 

I  had  an  opportunity  a  little  later,  when  I  again  served 
as  foreman,  of  investigating  the  record  of  T.,  who  was  at 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  319 

that  time  commissioner  of  public  works,  and  of  D.,  a  Tam- 
many selection  for  sheriff.  Our  reports  against  both  men 
were  sufficiently  condemnatory.  T.  skipped  his  bail  and 
died  shortly  after  in  the  West  Indies.  D.  was  cleared  by  a 
technicality  but  it  was  impossible  for  him  again  to  secure 
office.  He  was  a  discredited  man. 

I  remember  in  the  mass  of  evidence  as  to  the  manage- 
ment of  T.'s  department  an  ingenious  device  for  evading 
the  law  in  regard  to  public  bids  for  work  involving  over  a 
thousand  dollars.  The  most  noteworthy  expenditures 
during  T.'s  term  of  office  had  been  those  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  notorious  county  court-house.  The  painting 
of  the  dome  of  the  court-house  was  an  expensive  matter, 
the  chief  item  of  expense  being,  as  it  appeared,  the  cost  of 
the  erection  of  the  very  high  scaffold  required.  The  paint- 
ing of  the  dome,  instead  of  being  given  out  as  one  job,  was 
divided  into  sections  and  the  first  order  covered  the  paint- 
ing of  only  one  fourth  of  the  surface.  This  outlay  included 
of  necessity  the  cost  of  the  scaffolding.  The  successful 
bidder  put  in  his  scaffolding  at  less  than  its  cost  to  him. 
He  secured  also,  however,  the  orders  for  the  other  three 
sections  including  in  each  case  the  cost  of  scaffolding. 
Having  the  scaffolding  already  constructed  and  in  place, 
he  had,  of  course,  for  these  three  later  bids,  a  business 
advantage  which  his  competitors  could  not  offset.  He 
received,  therefore,  for  this  particular  job  about  three 
prices  and  the  voucher  for  each  section  was  technically 
correct.  The  final  cost  paid  by  the  city  was  about  three 
times  the  market  price;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  this 
fortunate  contractor  was  willing  later  to  give  without 
charge  a  coat  of  paint  to  Mr.  T.'s  private  dwelling. 

Some  years  later,  when  again  serving  as  foreman,  I  came 
into  rather  sharp  conflict  with  Mr.  G.,  the  Tammany 
district  attorney.  We  had  been  investigating  certain  of 
the  city  departments  and  more  particularly  into  the 


320  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

conduct  of  the  police  force.  Much  evidence  had  been 
placed  before  us,  showing  the  complicity  of  the  police  with 
the  operations  of  criminals  and  other  law-breakers.  It 
was  evident  that  large  sums  were  being  paid  by  these 
breakers  of  the  law  for  the  protection  of  the  police.  It  was 
also  pretty  clear  that  the  moneys  so  paid,  after  certain 
divisions  had  been  made  with  the  police  officials  (rounds- 
men, captains,  and  inspectors),  through  whose  hands  the 
moneys  passed,  went  into  the  treasury  of  Tammany. 
The  notorious  D.  was  at  the  time  chief  of  police  and  a 
certain  F.,  the  operations  of  whose  illegal  pool-rooms  we 
had  occasion  to  look  into,  was  a  brother-in-law  of  D.  and 
secured  the  full  advantage  of  the  family  connection.  The 
evidence  indicated  that  T.  S.  and  other  well-known  Tam- 
many politicians  belonged  to  the  pool-room  gang  which 
secured  the  proceeds  of  the  illegal  business;  and  further 
evidence  associated  E.,  another  Tammany  leader,  with  the 
profitable  operations  of  the  association  of  cadets.  We 
found  the  work  of  securing  evidence  difficult  on  more 
grounds  than  one,  but  the  difficulties  were  increased  very 
materially  by  the  lethargy,  and  finally  by  the  active  inter- 
ference, of  the  district  attorney.  G.  was  a  well-meaning 
and  rather  futile  person  who  was  evidently  being  utilized 
as  a  tool  by  the  Tammany  authorities  to  whom  he  owed 
his  post.  The  brains  of  the  district  attorney  were  to  be 
found  in  the  two  chief  assistants,  M.  and  U.  The  latter, 
after  his  term  of  office  had  expired,  served  as  counsel  for 
the  "  cadets."  Witnesses  whom  we  took  the  responsibility 
of  ordering  to  attend  under  individual  subpoena  from  the 
foreman  of  the  jury,  would  strangely  disappear  from  the 
city.  Other  witnesses  would  report  that  they  would  be 
at  our  service  provided  that  their  evidence  need  not  be 
given  in  the  presence  of  any  member  of  the  staff  of  the 
district  attorney.  Then,  as  later,  it  was  a  serious  matter 
for  a  man  doing  business  in  the  city  to  have  his  name  come 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  321 

on  to  the  black-list  of  Tammany  Hall.  There  were  many 
ways  in  which  under  full  cover  of  the  law  a  man  could  be 
ruined,  or  at  least  his  business  seriously  interfered  with. 

In  the  Grand  Jury  room,  after  certain  routine  matters 
are  disposed  of,  it  is  customary  to  send  each  morning  to 
the  office  of  the  district  attorney  with  the  word  that  the 
jurors  are  ready  for  the  service  of  their  counsel.  A  special 
assistant  district  attorney  is  detailed  to  render  the  service 
desired.  This  includes  as  a  rule  the  suggestion  of  the 
business  to  be  taken  up  and,  particularly  in  the  more  im- 
portant cases,  such  as  charges  for  murder,  the  examination 
of  the  witnesses.  It  was  in  the  selection  of  the  business 
to  be  considered  that  the  influence  of  the  district  attorney 
had  become  disproportioned  and  on  the  whole  detrimental 
to  the  interest  of  the  community.  It  was  not  unnatural 
that  twenty-three  business  men  brought  together  for  a 
brief  term  of  authority  should  hesitate  at  acting  in  any 
way  in  opposition  to  the  judgment  of  the  trained  lawyers 
who  had  been  designated  as  their  official  counsel.  If, 
however,  this  group  of  lawyers  represented  the  interests 
of  a  combination  like  that  of  Tammany  Hall,  and  if  there 
were  occasion  for  the  interest  of  the  community  to  investi- 
gate and  to  condemn  the  actions  of  city  officials  who  owed 
their  posts  to  this  same  Tammany  Hall,  it  became  neces- 
sary to  act  without  the  aid  of  the  district  attorney's  office 
and  even  to  take  action  in  direct  opposition  to  the  counsel 
and  the  conclusions  of  the  district  attorney. 

I  had  been  able,  through  the  service  of  witnesses  who  had 
volunteered  their  testimony,  to  secure  important  evidence 
in  regard  to  the  breaking  of  law  and  the  complicity  of  the 
police.  Other  witnesses  I  had  gotten  hold  of  by  sub- 
poenas sent  direct  instead  of,  in  accordance  with  the  usual 
routine,  through  the  office  of  the  district  attorney.  I 
found  that  if  I  used  the  usual  office  machinery  for  securing 
this  testimony,  the  witnesses  would  either  not  report  at  all, 


322  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

or,  if  their  first  evidence  proved  likely  to  be  serious,  they 
would  then  disappear  so  that  they  could  not  be  reached 
later  for  confirming  their  testimony  in  court.  I  was  able 
to  make  clear  to  the  jury  that  the  office  of  the  district 
attorney  was  being  utilized  for  the  protection  of  the  men 
and  of  the  system  that  we  were  calling  to  account. 

On  one  morning  of  our  session,  one  of  the  witnesses, 
subpoenaed  directly  by  the  foreman,  had  just  been  sworn, 
when  the  district  attorney  himself,  accompanied  by  one  of 
his  assistants,  bounced  into  the  room.  The  mere  manner 
of  his  entrance  was  an  impertinence,  because  it  was  always 
the  rule  that  admission  to  the  room  of  the  Grand  Jury 
should  be  requested  and  no  one  was  expected  to  pass  the 
barrier  until  permission  had  been  given  by  the  foreman. 
Ignoring  the  form  of  the  entrance,  I  stated  to  G.  that  we 
were  not  yet  ready  for  the  presence  of  our  legal  adviser. 
I  explained  that  we  had  certain  business  to  complete  which 
we  had  undertaken  at  our  own  instance  and  that  we  would 
send  for  our  adviser  when  we  were  ready  for  his  service. 
" I  am  interested  in  this  testimony,"  replied  G.  "I  desire 
to  stay  here  to  listen  to  it."  I  had  of  course  promptly 
excused  the  witness  so  that  he  should  not  have  knowledge 
of  any  issue  between  the  Grand  Jury  and  the  district 
attorney.  "I  must  request  you  to  withdraw,"  I  replied; 
"this  testimony  cannot  be  taken  in  your  presence."  "I 
decline,"  said  the  district  attorney.  "I  have  the  right  to 
be  here  if  it  seems  to  me  important  for  the  welfare  of  the 
city."  "I  direct  you  to  withdraw,"  was  my  response.  " I 
refuse, "  said  G.  Whereupon  I  adjourned  the  jury  and  our 
twenty-three  members,  accompanied  by  the  district  at- 
torney and  his  assistant,  tramped  down  to  the  general 
sessions'  court  to  present  to  the  presiding  judge,  the 
Recorder,  the  issue  that  had  arisen.  The  trial  proceedings 
of  the  court  were  necessarily  interrupted  (the  business  of 
the  Grand  Jury  always  has  precedence)  and  jury,  witnesses, 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  323 

and  audience  looked  on  with  interest  at  the  novelty  of  a 
contest  between  a  district  attorney  and  a  Grand  Jury. 
The  foreman  stated  to  the  Recorder  that  the  business  of 
the  Grand  Jury  had  been  interrupted  and  was  being  blocked 
by  the  action  of  the  district  attorney.  ''It  is  our  under- 
standing," I  said,  "that  the  Grand  Jury,  sitting  as  a  court, 
has  full  control  over  its  own  proceedings  and  over  its  own 
premises;  that  it  has  the  right  to  secure  the  legal  service 
and  counsel  of  the  district  attorney's  office,  but  that  if,  on 
one  ground  or  another,  the  jury  decides  to  proceed  with- 
out such  legal  advice,  it  has  the  right  so  to  do  on  its  own 
responsibility.  This  morning,"  I  stated,  "we  have 
been  unable  to  proceed  with  certain  investigations  because 
our  room  was  invaded  by  the  district  attorney  and  his 
assistant,  who  have  refused  to  meet  our  request  or  to  accept 
our  instructions  to  withdraw."  Mr.  G.,  on  being  asked 
by  the  court  what  he  had  to  say  in  reply  to  the  contention 
of  the  Grand  Jury,  began  to  explain  how  his  patriotic 
ancestors  had  been  appointed  to  raise  the  first  American 
flag  in  the  city  of  New  York.  Being  interrupted  after  the 
waste  of  some  little  time  of  the  court  and  directed  to  speak 
to  the  matter  in  question,  he  began  an  account  of  his 
experiences  in  connection  with  the  battle  of  Gettysburg. 
It  proved  to  be  impossible  to  secure  from  him  any  legal 
statement  in  regard  to  his  right  to  control  the  proceedings 
of  the  Grand  Jury  and,  against  their  wishes,  to  be  present 
at  their  deliberations.  The  court  then  gave  its  decision 
in  favour  of  the  contention  of  the  Grand  Jury.  According 
to  the  opinion  of  the  Recorder,  the  Grand  Jury  did  sit  as  a 
court  and  had  the  right  to  the  full  control  of  its  own  pro- 
ceedings. If  it  made  blunders  by  reason  of  failure  to  secure 
proper  counsel  and  direction,  the  responsibility  for  such 
blunders  rested  with  the  twenty-three  members  and 
particularly,  of  course,  with  the  foreman.  It  had  the 
absolute  control  over  its  own  premises. 


324  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

The  point  was  of  importance  in  more  ways  than  one. 
As  far  as  I  could  learn,  the  issue  had  never  before  been 
raised  in  the  county  of  New  York.  As  before  stated,  suc- 
cessive district  attorneys  had  gradually  assumed  the  right 
to  direct  and  control  the  operations  of  the  Grand  Jury.  He 
decided  what  witnesses  should  be  called,  and  if  he  chose, 
he  made  the  examination  of  these  witnesses.  We  had  now 
succeeded  in.  establishing  a  precedent  (returning,  as  I 
understood,  to  the  original  procedure)  under  which  the 
Grand  Jury,  representing  directly  as  it  did  the  people  at 
large,  retained  the  entire  control  of  its  own  investigations 
and  operations,  a  control  subject  to  no  outside  authority 
whatsoever.  Its  conclusions  could,  of  course,  always  be 
set  aside  if  unwarranted  by  law  or  by  the  evidence  that 
they  had  been  able  to  collect  in  support  of  the  same. 

Supported  by  this  action  of  the  court,  we  returned  to  our 
quarters  and  proceeded  with  the  examination  of  the  wit- 
ness whom  we  had  called.  My  relations  with  the  district 
attorney  during  the  remaining  weeks  of  the  term  were 
naturally  strained.  It  was,  of  course,  necessary  to  make 
sure  that  in  our  investigations  we  kept  within  the  Emits 
of  our  legal  rights  and  for  this  purpose  we  required  counsel. 
I  arranged  with  the  Recorder,  whose  uptown  home  was 
near  my  own,  to  report  to  him  from  evening  to  evening, 
and  I  was  able  in  this  way  to  keep  him  advised  as  to  the 
conduct  of  our  business  and  to  secure  the  necessary  coun- 
sel in  the  shaping  of  the  series  of  presentments  that  we  had 
in  preparation.  There  was  still  difficulty  in  regard  to  one 
important  detail.  The  stenographer  assigned  to  the  Grand 
Jury  was  an  appointee  of  the  district  attorney.  Any 
correspondence,  or  other  papers,  dictated  by  the  foreman 
through  this  stenographer  was  promptly  brought  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  very  official  against  whom  at  the  time 
we  had  a  presentment  in  preparation.  This  was  an  im- 
possible situation.  The  foreman  and  the  other  members  of 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  325 

the  jury  were  under  oath  to  bring  to  the  knowledge  of  no 
person  outside  of  the  officials  of  the  court  any  business  that 
was  carried  on  by  them.  The  foreman  was,  therefore,  not 
permitted  to  secure,  in  the  ordinary  routine,  the  service  of 
an  outside  stenographer.  I  arranged,  however,  with  the 
Recorder  to  have  my  daughter  Ethel  sworn  in  as  a  special 
stenographer  of  the  court,  her  service  to  remain  official 
during  the  term  of  existence  of  my  Grand  Jury. 

The  notes  that  I  took  during  the  morning  were  dictated 
to  her  in  the  evening  and  sometimes  up  to  a  very  late  hour, 
and  the  papers,  correspondence,  subpoenas,  or  present- 
ments as  written  out  by  her  were  passed  upon  each 
morning  by  the  jury,  and  when  approved,  were  signed  by 
the  foreman.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  the  twenty-two  mem- 
bers who  served  with  me  on  the  jury,  while  representing 
various  groups  of  politics  and  opinions,  gave  to  the  fore- 
man a  very  substantial  backing  up  in  all  the  undertakings 
of  our  service.  They  came  in  fact  to  have  a  keen  personal 
interest  in  the  purpose  and  character  of  the  work  that  we 
were  doing  and  to  enjoy  some  of  the  prestige  or  notoriety 
that  was  given  to  us  by  the  press  after  the  record  of  the 
fight  with  the  district  attorney  had  become  a  matter  of 
public  knowledge.  Before,  however,  I  had  gone  very  far 
with  the  use  of  my  new  stenographer  (the  stenographer  of 
the  court  was  still,  of  course,  utilized  for  the  record  of  the 
routine  day's  work)  I  was  called  into  court  at  the  instance 
of  the  district  attorney  to  meet  the  charge  that  I  had,  in 
breach  of  my  obligation  and  of  my  oath,  allowed  the 
business  of  the  court  to  coisp  into  the  hands  of  unofficial 
and  unauthorized  parties.  G.  held  up  before  the  Recorder 
certain  typewritten  sheets  bearing  the  signature  of  the 
foreman  which  sheets  had,  as  he  declared,  not  been  written 
by  the  official  stenographer.  It  was  evident,  therefore, 
that  the  foreman  was  using  the  services  of  somebody  out- 
side of  the  court.  "What  have  you  to  say  to  this  com- 


326  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

plaint,  Mr.  Foreman?"  "Your  honour  will  recall,"  I 
replied,  "that,  early  in  this  session,  for  the  purpose  of 
facilitating  the  special  work  that  was  being  undertaken 
by  this  jury,  you  swore  in  for  our  service  a  special  sten- 
ographer who  is,  as  I  understand,  during  our  time  of  ser- 
vice, an  officer  of  this  court.  I  can  state  that  no  papers 
having  to  do  with  the  business  of  the  court  have  been  in 
the  hands  of  any  stenographer  excepting  the  one  detailed 
for  our  service  by  the  district  attorney  and  the  special 
stenographer  appointed  by  yourself."  Poor  old  G.  was 
very  much  taken  back  at  this  unexpected  result  of  a 
charge  which  he  had  assumed  would  certainly  bring  to  an 
end  my  pernicious  and  annoying  investigations. 

At  the  close  of  our  term,  we  submitted  presentments 
against  the  chief  of  police  and  against  the  district  attor- 
ney. We  gave  it  as  the  opinion  of  our  jury  that  the  dis- 
trict attorney's  office  had  for  some  time  been  utilized  for 
the  protection  of  the  police  and  of  other  officials  who  were 
selling  the  right  to  break  the  law.  We  recommended 
that  proceedings  should  be  taken  by  the  Governor  for  the 
removal  of  the  district  attorney.  Our  presentment  was 
characterized  by  one  or  more  of  the  Tammany  judges 
who  were  associated  with  the  Recorder  in  the  court  of  the 
general  sessions  as  an  impertinence.  Judge  F.  took  the 
ground  that  the  presentment  ought  not  to  find  place  in 
the  public  records  of  the  court.  Argument  to  have  the 
presentment  cancelled  was  made  before  the  court  by  assist- 
ant district  attorney  U.  with  the  assistance  of  some  other 
Tammany  lawyer.  Wheeler  H.  Peckham  volunteered  to 
defend  the  action  of  the  Grand  Jury  and  its  foreman  and 
to  deny  the  right  of  the  court  to  expunge  from  its  records 
a  presentment  that  had  been  framed  by  an  officer  of  the 
court  in  accordance  with  the  regulations  in  force.  A  de- 
cision was  reached  by  Judge  F.  in  support  of  the  contention 
of  U.  and  G.  and  the  presentment  was  ordered  to  be 


Work  on  the  Grand  Jury  327 

expunged  from  the  records.  The  decision  although  ad- 
verse was  of  service  in  emphasizing  the  importance  of  the 
issue  that  had  been  raised.  The  presentment  as  at  first 
submitted  would  probably  have  been  forgotten  after 
twenty-four  hours.  When,  however,  it  came  to  be  a 
matter  of  contest  within  the  court,  and  when  under  court 
order  the  document  was  directed  to  be  expunged  from 
the  records,  the  papers  were  interested  in  giving  to  it  full 
publicity.  The  official  proceedings  did  not  come  to  a  close 
with  the  decision  of  Judge  F.  The  presentment,  accom- 
panied by  a  recommendation  for  the  removal  of  G.,  was 
duly  forwarded  to  Governor  Roosevelt.  The  Governor 
asked  me  to  take  breakfast  with  him  so  that  he  might 
secure  a  better  personal  knowledge  of  the  actual  condition 
of  affairs.  He  was  good  enough  to  say  that  any  word  that 
I  gave  him,  based  on  my  own  direct  knowledge,  would 
constitute  final  evidence.  G.  was  tried  before  a  special 
commissioner  appointed  for  the  purpose.  The  first  trial 
resulted  in  a  verdict  "not  proven"  and  for  a  month  or  two 
longer  G.  kept  his  place.  A  little  later,  in  connec- 
tion with  further  similar  evidence  secured,  he  was 
again  brought  to  trial  before  a  representative  appointed 
by  the  Governor  and  these  proceedings  resulted  in 
his  dismissal  from  office.  The  Governor  told  me  that 
the  main  ground  for  his  dismissal  was  to  be  found  in 
the  presentment  that  had  been  shaped  by  myself  and 
that  had  been  approved  (without  a  dissenting  voice)  by 
my  associates. 

If  the  jury  had  done  nothing  else  during  its  thirty  days' 
work,  it  had  rendered  good  service  in  freeing  the  com- 
munity from  the  burden  of  a  district  attorney's  office 
carried  on  for  the  protection  of  crime.  At  the  end  of  the 
session,  the  members  of  the  jury  gave  a  dinner  to  its  fore- 
man and  a  piece  of  silver  plate.  They  also  sent  to  my 
daughter  an  expression  of  appreciation  of  the  importance 


328  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

of  the  service  rendered  by  the  "special  stenographer" 
whom,  of  course,  they  had  never  seen. 

I  recall  in  another  grand  jury  investigation  into  the 
conduct  of  the  city  departments,  an  occasion  in  which  I 
had  requirement  to  test  the  veracity  of  a  witness  whose 
evidence  had  been  important  if  true.  I  found  that  some 
of  my  associates  had  not  been  prepared  to  place  confidence 
in  the  man's  statements.  I  remembered,  after  the  witness 
had  left  the  room,  that  he  wore  a  Grand  Army  button, 
and  I  had  him  brought  back  and  put  a  few  questions  to 
him  in  regard  to  his  service  in  the  field. 

"Where  did  you  serve?" 

"Mainly  in  Virginia." 

"What  actions  were  you  in?" 

"Well,  sir,  I  was  at  Ball's  Bluff,  and  later  on  the 
Peninsula,  and  nearly  all  around,  with  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac." 

"Who  commanded,"  I  asked,  "at  Ball's  Bluff?" 

"Well,  sir,"  he  replied,  "Colonel  Stone  thought  he 
commanded,  but  the  General  on  the  other  side  did  most 
of  the  commanding  that  day." 

I  was  convinced  that  our  witness  had  served  and  that 
he  had  been  present  at  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff,  and  we 
secured  later  the  corroboration  that  made  his  evidence 
effective. 

Olga  Nethersole  and  the  Grand  Jury.  In  the  early 
nineties,  I  had  in  my  capacity  as  foreman  of  the  Grand 
Jury  of  the  day,  an  experience  with  one  of  the  popular 
actresses  of  the  time,  Olga  Nethersole.  I  had  met  the 
young  lady  a  few  years  before  at  the  house  of  a  friend  in 
London.  She  was  then  preparing  for  her  debut  and  my 
friend  had  been  of  some  service  in  securing  a  hearing  for 
the  girl  in  whose  talent  he  had  faith.  The  parlour  reci- 
tation given  at  the  time  impressed  me  as  clever,  but  I 
did  not  profess  to  be  a  judge  of  dramatic  capacity.  At 


Olga  Nethersole  and  the  Grand  Jury   329 

this  later  time,  she  was  taking  the  principal  r61e  in  the 
play  based  upon  Daudet's  romance,  Sappho.  The  New 
York  World  had  thought  fit  to  characterize  the  play  as 
indecent  or  at  least  as  improper,  and  the  editor  went  so  far 
as  to  ask  the  District  Attorney  to  have  a  stop  put  upon 
further  performances  on  the  ground  that  they  were  contra 
bonos  mores.  The  District  Attorney  brought  to  the 
attention  of  the  Grand  Jury  the  charges  as  formulated  by 
the  World,  and  Miss  Nethersole,  hearing  that  there  was 
risk  of  her  being  indicted  for  taking  part  in  an  improper 
performance,  wrote  to  the  foreman  asking  permission  to  be 
heard  in  her  own  defence.  Such  requests  are  frequently 
made  on  the  part  of  persons  under  charges,  but  it  is  only  in 
the  exceptional  cases  that  they  are  granted.  The  jury 
does  not  sit  for  the  trial  of  cases,  but  merely  to  determine 
whether  the  charges  presented,  unless  refuted  in  court 
by  satisfactory  evidence,  would  warrant  a  conviction. 
The  foreman  advised  the  jury  against  granting  Miss 
Nethersole's  request.  He  thought  it  possible  that  it  was 
the  intention  of  the  lady  and  of  her  managers  to  utilize 
the  jury  for  advertising  purposes.  The  majority  of  the 
men  present,  curious  to  see  an  actress  who  was  described 
as  beautiful  and  who  was  certainly  famous,  voted  however 
to  give  her  a  hearing.  She  presented  herself  beautifully 
dressed,  and  as  I  realized  at  once,  she  made  upon  the  jurors 
a  very  decided  impression. 

Mr.  Foreman  [she  began],  I  can  but  think  that  you  have  been 
given  by  the  wicked  papers  a  wrong  impression  of  this  beautiful 
and  artistic  production,  the  work  of  one  of  the  great  authors 
of  the  world.  I  want  you  to  let  me  recite  to  you  a  portion  of 
the  play,  and  with  your  permission  I  will  take  the  very  passages 
which  have  been  most  severely  characterized  by  these  critics. 

The  jury  was  willing  and  the  lady  recited  the  scenes, 
or  a  large  portion  of  the  scenes,  in  question ;  and  I  could 


33°  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

see  as  the  performance  went  on  that  the  jurors,  while 
themselves  not  only  impressed  but  more  or  less  fascinated, 
might  easily  decide  that  a  performance  that  was  certainly 
attractive  for  grown  men,  would  be  unsuitable  for  their 
wives  and  daughters. 

It  was  a  little  difficult  to  bring  the  lady  to  a  stop,  but 
the  foreman  finally  pointed  out  that  our  time  was  limited 
and  that  the  hearing  had  been  granted  as  an  exceptional 
favour.  I  took  her  to  one  side  and  pointed  out  that  she 
was  looking  at  this  production  and  performance  from 
the  point  of  view  of  an  artist,  while  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
critics,  or  at  least  the  better  class  of  the  critics,  and  the 
jurors  to  consider  it  with  reference  to  the  probable  effect 
upon  the  general  public,  a  public  that  must  of  neces- 
sity include  a  certain  proportion  of  immature  persons.  I 
told  her  that  I  feared  there  would  be  an  adverse  decision. 
She  wept  impressively  on  my  shoulder  and  she  was  then 
bowed  out  through  the  District  Attorney's  private  office. 
The  jury  by  a  decisive  majority  brought  in  an  indictment. 
As  a  result  of  the  indictment,  the  play  was  stopped  and 
the  moneys  that  had  been  paid  in  for  boxes  and  seats 
were  of  necessity  returned. 

A  week  later  (the  case  was  advanced  in  the  court  on  the 
plea  of  the  managers  that  contracts  of  one  kind  or  another 
were  depending  upon  the  decision)  the  case  came  to 
trial  in  the  Court  of  General  Sessions  and  the  petty  jury 
decided  (under  instructions  from  the  judge  if  I  remember 
rightly)  that  there  was  no  adequate  legal  ground  for 
interfering  with  the  performance.  The  play  was  replaced 
upon  the  boards  and  was  produced  with  increasing  success. 
The  contracts  were  extended  and  manager  and  actress 
were  said  to  have  made  a  great  deal  of  money.  A  wicked 
public  further  suggested  that  the  action  of  the  New 
York  World  had  been  taken  at  the  suggestion  of,  that  is 
to  say  in  collusion  with,  the  actress  and  manager,  an 


Olga  Nethersole  and  the  Grand  Jury   331 

arrangement  which  was  under  the  circumstances  quite 
possible. 

I  recall  a  remark  made  at  the  trial  by  Miss  Nethersole's 
counsel  which  bore  rather  hardly  upon  the  foreman : 

This  lady  is  charged,  your  honour  and  gentlemen  of  the  jury, 
with  an  improper  performance,  the  term  improper  applying  to 
the  scenes  of  the  play.  These  scenes,  of  course,  did  not  origin- 
ate with  her,  but  were  the  production  of  one  of  the  great 
authors  of  the  time.  The  play  is,  I  may  recall  to  you,  taken 
from  the  famous  romance  of  the  same  name.  I  have  in  my 
hands,  gentlemen,  a  copy  of  the  book.  Will  you  believe  it, 
gentlemen?  This  book  has  been  produced  from  the  place  of 
business  of  the  man  who  as  foreman  of  the  Grand  Jury  is 
responsible  for  this  wicked  charge  against  my  client.  That 
a  man  as  a  publisher  should  be  willing  to  give  to  the  public 
a  book  the  text  of  which  as  a  juryman  he  describes  as 
improper  and  indecent,  is  certainly  a  most  exceptional  piece 
of  inconsistency  and  pharasaism. 

The  clever  lawyer  knew,  of  course,  that  he  was  talking 
rubbish,  but  his  words  were  effective  enough  for  the  pur- 
pose. Daudet's  story  of  Sappho  had  been  published  in  an 
American  edition,  not  by  the  Putnams  but  by  a  firm  in 
Boston.  The  lawyer  had  picked  up  in  our  retail  shop  a 
copy  of  the  Boston  edition  and  he  was  quite  safe  in  assum- 
ing that  the  jury  would  not  know  the  difference  between 
the  responsibility  of  a  publisher  whose  imprint  is  placed 
upon  the  book  and  that  of  a  bookseller  who  naturally 
sells  the  books  that  are  called  for.  He  could  also  safely 
assume  the  ignorance  of  the  jury  as  to  the  difference 
between  the  text  of  the  play  and  the  text  of  the  book. 
Under  the  instructions  of  the  American  publisher,  the 
translator  had,  in  shaping  his  American  text,  gotten  rid 
of  a  number  of  the  more  "difficult"  of  the  phrases  and 
suggestions  in  the  original  French. 


332  Work  on  the  Grand  Jury 

I  remember  hearing  later  that  when  Daudet  was  attempt- 
ing to  secure  for  his  book  an  American  publishing  arrange- 
ment, his  correspondent  on  this  side  found  difficulties 
and  finally  was  obliged  to  send  word  to  the  author  by 
cable,  "Sapho  impossible."  Daudet  was  said  to  have 
taken  the  cablegram  to  a  friend  having  knowledge  of 
American  conditions.  He  could  not  imagine  what  should 
stand  in  the  way  of  the  acceptance  by  Americans  of  this 
work  of  genius.  "What  does  the  fellow  mean?"  says 
Daudet.  "Oh!"  said  his  friend,  "you  do  not  understand 
English.  Cable  back  to  him  to  spell  it  with  two  p's." 
The  two  p's  and  certain  eliminations  (probably  made 
without  the  knowledge  of  the  author)  proved  sufficient  to 
enable  the  American  edition  to  come  into  print. 


CHAPTER 
Work  for  the  City 

The  City  Club.  In  the  autumn  of  1892,  my  cousin, 
William  C.  Gulliver,  a  capable  young  lawyer,  invited  me 
to  dine  with  him  to  meet  his  friend,  a  Yale  classmate, 
Edmond  Kelly.  Gulliver  explained  when  I  reported  on 
the  evening  fixed,  that  Kelly,  who  had  just  returned  from 
Paris  where  he  had  been  for  some  time  practising  law, 
had  asked  to  be  brought  into  personal  relations  with  some 
of  "the  cranks"  of  New  York.  By  "cranks,"  Gulliver 
went  on  to  explain,  Kelly  meant  men  who  were  not  satis- 
fied with  the  present  conditions  of  things  in  the  city,  who 
believed  that  something  could  be  done  to  improve  those 
conditions,  and  who  were  willing,  or  who  could  be  induced 
to  be  willing,  to  do  their  share  towards  such  improvement. 
Kelly  was  an  idealist,  but  an  idealist  who  succeeded  in 
impressing  those  with  whom  he  had  to  do  as  worth  listen- 
ing to.  He  had  a  magnetism  which  brought  his  hearers  at 
once  into  sympathetic  relation  with  him,  and  when  he  had 
had  an  opportunity  of  stating  his  case,  it  was  evident 
that  his  ideals  rested  upon  careful  study  and  clear-sighted 
thought.  The  one  limitation  to  the  acceptance  of  his 
views  as  to  possibilities  may  have  been  an  over-optimism 
on  his  part  in  regard  to  human  nature.  He  was  too  ready 
to  believe  that,  when  a  duty  had  been  made  clear  to  a 
hundred  citizens,  at  least  ninety  of  these  citizens  would 

333 


334  Work  for  the  City 

be  prepared  at  once  to  make  such  sacrifice  as  might  be 
required  on  their  part  to  have  the  obligation  carried  out. 
The  dozen  men  who  were  gathered  about  Gulliver's 
table  listened  with  interest  to  Kelly's  schemes  for  the 
regeneration  of  New  York.  Kelly  pointed  out,  as  we  all, 
of  course,  understood,  that  the  would-be  reformers  of 
the  city  had  in  their  previous  undertakings,  initiated  for 
the  furthering  of  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  community, 
worked  at  serious  disadvantage.  The  reformers  had 
come  together  in  temporary  committees  or  associations 
instituted  for  the  single  campaign,  or  for  such  a  purpose  as 
had  been  successfully  accomplished  a  few  years  earlier, 
the  overthrowing  of  the  Tweed  Ring.  The  campaign 
completed  or  the  immediate  object  attained,  the  associ- 
ation or  committee  naturally  dissolved.  When  a  fresh 
effort  was  required,  the  men  were,  of  course,  only  in  part 
the  same  men.  There  was  no  permanency  of  policy,  no 
headquarters,  no  continued  organization  to  represent  the 
interests  of  the  citizens.  Kelly  had  no  difficulty  in  making 
clear  what  many  of  us  had  already  realized,  that  if  the 
operations  of  an  organization  like  Tammany  Hall,  carried 
on  in  the  name  of  politics  but  really  for  commercial  pur- 
poses and  for  the  personal  gain  of  the  managers  of  the 
organization,  were  to  be  withstood  with  any  effectiveness, 
it  was  necessary  to  make  the  issue  clear  from  election 
to  election  to  a  majority  of  the  voters  of  the  city.  This 
education  of  the  voters  to  the  protection  of  their  own  rights 
and  interests  could  not  be  accomplished  by  temporary 
associations  or  by  campaign  committees.  Kelly  proposed 
the  organization  of  district  good  government  clubs,  one 
for  every  assembly  district  in  which  a  sufficient  number 
of  public-spirited  citizens  could  be  brought  together  and, 
what  was  more  difficult,  could  be  kept  together.  He 
proposed  further,  the  institution  of  a  central  association  or 
club  which  should,  like  Tammany  Hall,  have  permanent 


The  City  Club  335 

headquarters  and  continuing  machinery.  The  central  club 
was  in  his  plan  to  constitute  a  kind  of  clearing-house  for 
the  district  clubs.  The  organization  thus  constituted  was 
to  keep  in  force  a  continuing  supervision  of  the  city  govern- 
ment, the  departments,  the  executive,  and  the  aldermen. 
It  was  also,  whenever  there  seemed  to  be  fair  prospect  of 
success,  itself  to  put  into  the  field  a  Citizens'  ticket  so  that 
in  the  near  future  an  administration  could  be  secured  that 
should  represent  the  real  interests  of  the  whole  community. 
After  Kelly  had  had  the  opportunity  of  presenting  his 
scheme  the  host  asked  each  guest  in  turn  for  an  opinion  as 
to  the  practicability  of  putting  into  effect  the  measures 
proposed  and  as  to  the  probability  of  securing  from  such 
measures  any  assured  result.  The  opinions  were,  on 
the  whole,  adverse.  Some  of  the  things  proposed  by 
Kelly  had  been  tried  before,  while  others  had  been  talked 
over  and  the  trial  had  not  been  made  because  no  adequate 
support  had  been  secured  or  seemed  to  be  possible.  The 
host  himself  summed  up  the  attitude  of  criticism  and  then 
the  word  was  again  given  to  Kelly.  In  no  way  discouraged, 
Kelly  took  the  ground  that  the  attempt  was  to  be  made 
and  that  he  should  depend  upon  all  those  present  to  take 
part  with  him  in  the  work.  His  magnetism  and  hopeful- 
ness made  such  impression  upon  the  dozen  men  present, 
and  upon  the  hundreds  who  were  interviewed  later,  that 
steps  were  promptly  taken  to  carry  out  his  plan.  These 
steps  resulted  in  the  organization  of  a  number  of  good 
government  clubs  in  those  of  the  assembly  districts 
throughout  the  city  in  which  enough  men  could  be  found 
to  give  the  time  and  labour  required.  They  resulted, 
further,  in  the  institution  of  the  City  Club,  as  the  central 
organization  which  was  to  carry  on  continuing  effort  for 
the  welfare  of  New  York.  Some  of  the  doubts  and  criti- 
cisms proved  later  to  have  been  well  founded.  It  was 
easier  to  bring  men  together  in  district  associations  than 


336  Work  for  the  City 

to  keep  them  together.  Tammany  had  the  advantage 
that  its  district  associations  were  maintained  by  the  per- 
sonal interest  and  advantage  of  the  district  leaders  and  of 
those  who  secured  benefit  from  the  funds  at  the  disposal 
of  such  leaders.  Our  good  government  clubs  had  no  funds 
and  did  not  have  at  their  disposal  the  possibilities  and  the 
methods,  described  elsewhere,  by  which  the  Tammany 
authorities  obtained  money.  The  good  government 
clubs  brought  together  some  thousands  of  public-spirited 
citizens.  They  proved  to  be  of  value  in  making  known  to 
each  other  men  who  possessed  common  aims  and  who  were 
prepared  to  give  work  for  the  benefit  of  the  city.  Some 
local  service  was  rendered  by  these  clubs  in  calling  atten- 
tion to  evils  and  abuses  in  their  several  districts.  They 
took  part  also  and  with  partial  success  in  one  or  two  of  the 
ensuing  municipal  elections.  It  was  through  their  service 
that  were  secured  aldermen,  although  at  best  but  a  hand- 
ful, of  a  better  type  than  were  usually  to  be  found  in  the 
aldermanic  chambers.  The  clubs  took  their  part  in  at 
least  one  general  election  in  which  the  Citizens'  ticket  was 
successful.  Within  two  or  three  years,  however,  the  spirit 
that  supported  the  clubs  weakened.  It  proved  to  be 
impracticable  to  keep  the  men  together  and  the  district 
associations  had  to  be  abandoned.  The  central  body, 
however,  the  City  Club,  secured  a  permanent  foundation, 
and  at  this  date  (twenty  years  later)  it  has  proved  its 
right  to  exist  and  has  constituted  a  most  important  in- 
fluence and  factor  in  bringing  about  an  assured  and 
developing  improvement  in  the  standard  of  the  city  govern- 
ment, and  in  the  effectiveness  and  integrity  of  official 
action. 

It  was  finally  decided,  and  as  the  result  showed  wisely 
decided,  that  the  City  Club  could  render  better  con- 
tinued service  by  not  taking  part  directly  in  municipal 
campaigns. 


The  City  Club  337 

The  club  remained  a  body  which  charged  itself  par- 
ticularly with  the  work  of  supervision  and  with  criticism. 
Its  committees  keep  close  watch  over  the  measures  of  the 
board  of  aldermen,  the  action  of  the  executive  and  of  the 
board  of  estimate,  and  the  work  of  the  department  heads. 
Another  committee  is  charged  with  the  work  of  keeping 
track  of  measures  in  the  State  Legislature  which  affect 
the  interests  of  the  city.  The  reports  issued  from  time 
to  time  by  the  club  showing  the  character  of  the  work 
done  in  the  several  departments  and  the  nature  of  measures 
that  were  passed  or  attempted  either  in  the  board  of  alder- 
men or  in  the  State  Assembly,  have  proved  of  most  valuable 
service  in  heading  off  the  worst  of  the  many  efforts  made 
to  utilize  for  wrong  purposes  the  resources  of  the  city.  The 
first  president  of  the  club  was  James  C.  Carter  and  the 
later  presidents  included  men  like  Wheeler  H.  Peckham, 
George  McAneny,  Charles  H.  Strong,  and  Nelson  S.  Spencer. 
It  was  under  McAneny's  presidency  that  a  most  important 
precedent  in  regard  to  the  right  of  voters  to  bring  to 
account  delinquent  city  officials  was  established.  A 
committee  of  which  McAneny  was  the  chairman  carried 
on  prosecutions  against  two  borough  presidents,  Ahearn 
of  Manhattan  and  Haffen  of  the  Bronx,  who  were  charged 
with  various  kinds  of  malfeasance.  The  charges,  presented 
in  regular  course  before  the  governor,  resulted,  after 
operations  extending  over  nearly  two  years,  in  the  dis- 
missal of  both  borough  presidents.  The  attempt  of  the 
board  of  aldermen  to  re-elect  Ahearn  as  his  own  successor 
was,  also  under  the  initiative  of  the  City  Club,  declared 
to  be  unconstitutional.  It  is  not  likely  that  at  any 
time  in  the  near  future  borough  presidents  will  venture 
upon  the  practices  which  brought  to  book  Ahearn  and 
Haffen.  The  curious  responsibility  came  upon  McAneny 
of  himself  succeeding  the  man  whose  previous  practices  he 
had  so  thoroughly  analysed.  The  new  borough  president 


338  Work  for  the  City 

had  placed  upon  him  of  necessity,  through  his  own  de- 
scription of  the  methods  in  which  the  office  ought  to  be 
and  could  be  administered,  an  exceptionally  high  standard 
of  official  action.  The  citizens  of  his  borough  were,  how- 
ever, prepared  to  admit  after  a  service  of  four  years  from 
McAneny  that  this  standard  had  been  fully  maintained. 

An  important  incidental  service  is  rendered  by  an  organ- 
ization like  the  City  Club  in  the  educating  of  young 
men  to  a  realization  of  their  duties  and  their  privileges 
as  citizens.  Every  year,  a  good  many  thousand  young- 
sters, some  of  them  fresh  from  college,  come  to  New  York 
or  arrive  at  maturity  in  New  York.  It  is  of  first  impor- 
tance for  the  wholesome  development  of  our  cities,  that 
these  new  voters  should,  from  year  to  year,  be  increasingly 
influenced  by  a  practical  public  spirit  and  be  prepared  to 
render  their  share  of  citizens'  service.  When  the  younger 
men,  in  taking  up  their  work  in  New  York,  can,  in  an 
organization  like  the  City  Club,  be  brought  into  associ- 
ation with  older  citizens  who  are  well  known  as  leaders 
in  the  community,  men  like  James  C.  Carter,  Wheeler  H. 
Peckham,  Elihu  H.  Root,  R.  Fulton  Cutting,  W.  J. 
Schieffelin,  Charles  H.  Strong,  George  McAneny,  and  the 
like,  they  secure  an  influence  and  an  education  such  as 
could  come  to  them  in  no  other  way. 

We  used  to  say  in  Reform  circles  that  if  the  younger 
man  coming  to  New  York  from  Harvard  or  Yale  or  Prince- 
ton selected  for  his  daily  reading  the  New  York  Sun,  we 
could  do  very  little  with  him.  As  Emerson  says,  "Every 
man  is  as  lazy  as  he  dares  to  be, "  and  it  is  fairly  easy  for  a 
man  to  find  excuses,  satisfactory  at  least  to  himself,  for 
laziness  in  regard  to  work  as  a  citizen  when  he  finds  an 
ably  edited  paper  like  the  Sun  maintaining  a  persistent 
policy  of  sneering  at  reformers,  questioning  their  methods, 
or  holding  up  to  ridicule  the  possibility  of  any  good  results 
coming  to  the  community  from  their  work. 


Citizens'  Union  339 

I  am,  of  course,  here  making  reference  to  the  Sun  of 
many  years  back,  so  brilliantly,  and  as  it  seemed  to  us  so 
perversely,  edited  by  Charles  A.  Dana  and  his  immediate 
successors.  During  the  later  years,  the  great  influence  of 
the  paper  has,  with  hardly  an  exception,  been  given  in 
support  of  those  who  are  working  for  good  municipal 
government. 

Citizens'  Union.  It  was  in  the  City  Club  that  the 
organization  of  the  Citizens'  Union  had  its  birth.  I  had 
the  privilege  of  serving  for  a  number  of  weeks  as  a  member 
of  the  organization  committee  in  company  with  Elihu 
Root,  W.  J.  Schieffelin,  Fulton  and  Bayard  Cutting, 
William  H.  Baldwin,  and  others.  We  were  not  planning 
to  organize  a  party  in  the  political  sense  of  the  term,  but 
to  bring  together  in  permanent  association  a  group  of 
citizens,  which  might,  in  the  near  future,  come  to  con- 
stitute a  majority  group,  who  would  be  interested  in  giving 
their  votes  on  municipal  questions  free  from  any  confusion 
with  the  issues  upon  which  national  parties  are  organized 
and  directed  solely  to  the  interest  of  the  city  considered  as 
a  business  community. 

The  Citizens'  Union  was  able,  in  more  than  one  election, 
to  place  in  office  officials  who  fairly  represented  the 
interests  of  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  its  action  had 
also  the  effect  of  compelling  Tammany  Hall  to  put  up  a 
much  better  class  of  candidates  than  had  heretofore  been 
thought  necessary.  Tammany  realized  that  if  it  was 
going  to  hold  on  to  its  control  of  the  city's  resources,  it 
must,  at  least  when  the  citizens  were  well  organized,  pander 
to  the  better  sentiment  of  the  community. 

Our  organization  started  with  excellent  promise,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  successive  years,  we  were  able  to 
influence  to  the  good  several  city  elections,  and  in  one  case 
at  least,  to  carry  our  ticket.  Difficulties  arose  however, 
some  of  which  had  been  foreseen  by  the  older  men  who  had 


34°  Work  for  the  City 

had  experience  with  similar  organizations.  A  body  of 
citizens  who  come  together  in  a  Republican  club  or  in  a 
Tammany  organization  have  a  specific  purpose;  in  the 
former,  as  a  rule,  the  success  of  the  party,  and  in  the 
latter,  the  use  of  political  issues  for  the  individual  gain 
of  the  managing  members  of  the  organization.  Such 
citizens  have  on  their  hands  a  comparatively  simple  task. 
They  are  prepared  to  waive  their  individual  preferences 
and  to  accept  a  leadership  which  can  by  a  very  easy  transi- 
tion become  boss-ship. 

The  Citizens'  Union  collected  into  its  membership  more 
varied  groups  of  citizens  than  those  who  came  together  in 
the  work  of  the  City  Club.  For  the  membership  of  the 
Union  there  was  no  requirement  for  social  standing  or  even 
for  any  uniformity  of  opinion  on  municipal  problems. 
As  a  result,  the  Citizens'  Union,  in  extending,  as  it  did  for 
a  number  of  years  quite  largely,  its  membership  in  all 
the  districts  of  Greater  New  York,  gathered  in  cranks  and 
theorists  of  all  kinds.  The  majority  of  these  cranks  were 
doubtless  quite  honest  in  their  purposes  and  theories,  but 
it  became  increasingly  difficult  to  bring  into  any  harmony 
of  action  men  who  in  most  of  their  theories  about  govern- 
ment varied  so  seriously.  It  was  said  more  than  once 
that  a  Citizens'  Union  committee,  if  fairly  representative 
in  its  membership,  would  have  as  many  opinions  as  there 
were  members,  and  if  the  evening  were  long,  half  as  many 
again.  It  was  this  inevitable  diversity  of  theories  of 
political  action  which  made  it  impracticable  to  maintain 
the  Citizens'  Union  as  a  political  body.  I  had  myself 
the  opportunity  more  than  once,  in  presiding  in  the 
Cooper  Union  at  general  meetings  of  the  Citizens'  Union, 
at  the  times,  for  instance,  when  we  were  shaping  nomina- 
tions and  platforms  for  campaigns,  of  testing  the  difficulty 
of  securing  a  consistent  or  working  concensus  of  opinion. 
The  difficulty  was  serious  enough  in  the  selection  of  candi- 


Citizens'  Union  341 

dates  for  the  ticket  but  was  almost  insuperable  when  we 
came  to  the  task  of  making  up  the  platform  or  of  securing 
approval  for  platform  provisions  as  shaped  by  the  plat- 
form committee.  It  was  very  important  in  such  a  meeting 
to  give  as  much  opportunity  as  the  time  rendered  prac- 
ticable to  every  individual  utterance  however  absurd  or 
irrelevant  such  utterance  might  seem  to  be.  We  could 
not  push  through  the  work  of  the  meeting  with  the  simple 
system  that  obtains  in  Tammany  Hall  or  in  any  well- 
directed  party  convention,  in  which  the  whole  program 
as  well  as  the  platform  are  made  up  in  advance  and  are 
passed  upon  only  pro  forma  by  the  delegates.  If  we 
allowed  any  large  number  of  public-spirited  citizens  with 
theories  of  their  own  to  go  out  from  the  meeting  with  the 
feeling  that  they  had  been  headed  off,  that  the  "silk- 
stocking"  leaders  had  taken  an  arbitrary  control  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  meeting,  we  should  not  have  been  able 
to  retain  in  the  organization  the  assembly  district  associ- 
ations and  our  chances  of  success  at  the  polls  would  have 
been  proportionately  reduced.  It  seemed  wise,  therefore, 
even  with  the  necessity  of  continuing  the  meeting  until 
long  past  midnight,  to  allow  men  to  put  in  varied  sug- 
gestions about  minority  representation,  single  tax,  women's 
suffrage,  home  government,  control  of  tenements,  restric- 
tion of  the  importation  of  the  foreign  voter,  and  dozens  of 
other  subjects  still  less  relevant.  By  prohibiting  any 
individual  from  speaking  more  than  once,  by  restricting 
each  utterance  to  five  minutes,  and  by  a  vigorous  use  of 
the  gavel,  it  finally  did  prove  possible  to  allow  every- 
body, or  nearly  everybody,  to  blow  off  steam  in  his  own 
special  fashion  and  to  bring  the  meeting  to  an  end  by 
one  o'clock.  I  say  nearly  everybody,  for  the  day  after 
the  meeting  in  question,  I  was  waited  upon  in  my  office 
by  a  couple  of  "citizens"  whom  the  chairman  (probably 
through  accident)  had  failed  to  recognize  on  the  floor  and 


342  Work  for  the  City 

who  proposed  to  present  at  length,  even  though  it  was  in 
business  hours,  the  views  that  they  had  not  had  oppor- 
tunity of  advocating  in  the  hall  of  the  Cooper  Union. 

The  larger  political  possibilities  of  the  Citizens'  Union 
were  finally  brought  to  a  close  by  a  cleavage  among  its 
members  on  questions  connected  with  municipal  control 
and  municipal  operation  of  the  so-called  public  utilities. 
A  large  minority,  and  as  it  seemed  in  some  of  the  meetings 
an  actual  majority,  of  the  members  were  largely  impressed 
with  the  view  that  the  profits  resulting  from  the  operation 
of  the  public  utilities,  not  only  the  water  and  the  lighting, 
but  the  transportation,  ferries,  and  street  railroads,  ought 
not  to  go  into  the  pockets  of  private  individuals  but  should 
accrue  to  the  advantage  of  the  community  as  a  whole. 
They  gave  examples  of  cities  such  as  Glasgow  and  Birming- 
ham and  Berlin,  in  which  the  operation  of  these  utilities 
had  been  carried  on  with  direct  effectiveness  and  had 
brought  proceeds  to  the  city  treasury  which  lessened  the 
requirement  for  taxation.  They  insisted  that  contracts 
that  allowed  these  profits  to  go  to  corporation  interests 
or  to  individual  speculators  were  contrary  to  the  interests 
and  to  the  rights  of  the  community.  Their  opponents 
admitted,  of  course,  that  the  first  thing  to  be  considered 
was  the  interest  of  the  community.  They  admitted,  fur- 
ther, that  outrages  had  been  committed  by  the  public 
corporations  through  lack  of  supervision  of  the  operations 
carried  on  under  contract  or  licenses  from  the  city.  There 
was,  of  course,  ample  evidence  to  the  effect  that  charters 
representing  great  opportunities  for  profit  had  been  given 
away  without  proper  consideration.  This  section  of  the 
Union  was  quite  prepared  to  insist  upon  public  ownership 
being  brought  about  as  fast  as  private  or  corporation 
ownership  could  be  legally  and  profitably  extinguished. 
They  did  not  believe,  however,  that  the  government  of 
the  city  of  New  York  as  constituted,  and  as  it  was  likely 


Citizens'  Union  343 

to  be  constituted  for  years  to  come,  ought  to  be  trusted 
with  any  more  business  than  it  was  now  carrying  on,  and 
carrying  on  in  large  part  very  badly,  that  is  to  say  very 
extravagantly.  They  pointed  out  that  the  work  done 
by  the  city  was,  with  hardly  an  exception,  wasteful,  un- 
duly costly,  and  unprofitable  as  compared  with  similar 
work  done  by  individual  or  corporation  owners.  The 
experiment  that  was  at  that  time  being  made  with  the 
city  control  of  certain  ferries  had,  while  giving  better 
accommodation,  resulted  in  serious  and  steadily  increasing 
deficiencies.  They  objected  further  that  the  addition 
to  the  city  pay-rolls,  already  large,  of  the  thousands  of 
employees  that  would  be  required  for  operation  of  rail- 
roads, etc.,  would  place  in  the  hands  of  the  city  government 
(a  government  which  in  most  years  was  in  the  hands  of 
Tammany  Hall)  fresh  political  power,  a  power  that  was 
pretty  sure  to  be  used  against  the  interests  of  the  com- 
munity. The  policy  advocated  by  these  men  provided, 
therefore,  for  city  ownership  and  for  operation  under 
contract  by  corporations  which  should  be  closely  and 
honestly  supervised  on  behalf  of  the  city.  The  contracts 
were  to  be  for  the  shortest  terms  that  would  tempt  ade- 
quate capital  investment ;  this  plan  would  render  practic- 
able the  readjustment  of  the  contracts  from  term  to  term 
in  case  the  original  provisions  had  not  proved  sufficiently 
remunerative.  The  Single  Taxers,  or  Henry  George  men, 
who  constituted  at  the  time  quite  a  large  element  in  the 
membership  of  the  Union,  voted  for  the  most  part  with 
the  supporters  of  municipal  operation.  With  its  entire 
membership  organized  in  support  of  a  Citizens'  municipal 
ticket,  the  chances  of  success  of  the  Union  in  municipal 
elections  were  by  no  means  good,  and  it  was  only  occa- 
sionally, with  the  use  either  of  the  Republican  organiza- 
tion, when  this  organization  was  prepared  "to  play  good,'* 
or  with  the  backing  of  some  outside  body  such  as  Mr. 


344  Work  for  the  City 

Hearst's  so-called  Independence  League,  that  it  proved 
possible  to  get  Citizens'  candidates  into  office.  With  so 
serious  a  division  on  a  matter  of  municipal  policy  as  that 
above  indicated,  it  was,  of  course,  not  practicable  to  shape 
a  Citizens'  ticket  with  any  hope  of  success.  For  the  last 
few  years,  therefore,  the  Citizens'  Union,  retiring  from  what 
might  be  called  active  politics,  has,  under  the  clear-headed 
and  public-spirited  leadership  of  W.  J.  Schieffelin,  become 
an  advisory  and  investigating  body.  Its  representatives 
in  Albany  have  rendered  most  valuable  service  in  heading 
off  pernicious  legislation  and  its  several  committees  on 
municipal  work  have  co-operated  with  the  municipal 
committees  of  the  City  Club  in  such  manner  that  the 
work  need  not  be  duplicated. 

Bureau  of  Municipal  Research.  The  City  Club  was 
also  responsible  for  the  organization  of  the  Bureau  of 
Municipal  Research  which,  under  the  able  direction  of 
that  devoted  and  public-spirited  citizen,  R.  Fulton  Cutting, 
has  during  the  past  few  years  rendered  distinctive  and 
valuable  service  in  furthering  the  efficiency  of  the  city 
departments.  The  Bureau  is  of  importance  for  the 
protection  of  the  city  at  a  time  when  the  municipal 
administration  is  not  directly  representative  of  citizens' 
interests.  Its  work  has,  however,  been  extended  and 
made  more  valuable  when  it  has  been  in  a  position  to 
co-operate  with  an  administration  such  as  that  now  in 
office.  Officials  like  Mayor  Mitchel,  Mr.  McAneny,  Mr. 
Marks,  and  their  associates  have  welcomed  the  co-opera- 
tion of  Mr.  Cutting's  bureau,  and  precedents  for  an  efficient 
management  of  municipal  departments  are  now  being 
established  in  such  manner  that  it  will  be  difficult  to  put 
them  to  one  side,  even  under  a  less  sympathetic  adminis- 
tration. 

Committee  of  Fifteen.  In  1903,  a  meeting  was  held 
in  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce  to  consider 


Committee  of  Fifteen  345 

the  serious  conditions  that  were  obtaining  throughout 
large  divisions  of  the  city  in  connection  with  the  forms 
of  vice  that  are  characterized  as  the  social  evil.  The 
difficulty  that  was  confronting  the  citizens  of  New  York 
was  not  merely  the  increase  in  the  extent  and  influence  of 
vice  conditions,  but  the  fact  that  a  number  of  the  members 
of  the  police  force  and  of  the  other  municipal  officials  with 
whom  rested  the  immediate  responsibility  for  the  control 
and  restriction  of  vice  were,  as  it  was  charged,  fostering 
these  conditions  for  the  sake  of  personal  gain. 

The  meeting  had  been  called  as  the  result  of  an  ap- 
peal from  the  Reverend  Dr.  Paddock,  whose  missionary 
work  in  the  loth  Ward  had  brought  him  into  direct  re- 
lations with  the  managers  of  bad  houses  and  with  the 
police  officials  by  whom  these  houses  were  protected 
and  into  whose  pockets  went  substantial  returns  from 
the  business. 

The  result  of  the  meeting  was  the  appointment  of  a 
Committee  of  Fifteen  with  instructions  to  investigate 
into  the  matter  and  to  report,  first,  in  regard  to  the  charge 
that  vice  was  increasing  and  that  the  machinery  of  the 
promoters  of  vice  extended  even  outside  of  the  city  into 
the  country  districts  from  which  girls  were  lured  into  the 
city  houses;  and  secondly,  the  possibly  still  more  serious 
charge  that  those  who  were  responsible  for  the  government 
of  the  city  were  fostering  these  conditions  for  their  own 
personal  advantage  and  for  the  sustenance  of  their  political 
treasury.  In  this  committee  Charles  Stewart  Smith,  a 
retired  merchant  who  had  served  his  term  as  President  of 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  accepted  the  responsibility  of 
temporary  or  organizing  chairman.  William  H.  Baldwin 
became  the  permanent  chairman.  The  membership 
included  George  Foster  Peabody,  who  took  upon  his 
shoulders  the  bothersome  work  of  treasurer,  Felix  Adler, 
head  of  the  Ethical  Society,  Prof.  E.  R.  A.  Seligman  of 


346  Work  for  the  City 

Columbia  University,  Alexander  E.  Orr,  Austen  G.  Fox, 
and  other  active  citizens. 

A  subcommittee  of  five  made  up  of  the  chairman,  Adler, 
Seligman,  Orr,  and  myself  was  charged  with  the  immediate 
work  of  investigation.  Mr.  Orr  fell  ill  and  was  unable 
to  render  any  service.  Our  subcommittee  met  regularly 
on  Sunday  afternoon  at  the  house  of  Adler.  The  hours  of 
the  afternoon  were  devoted  to  the  receiving  of  the  reports 
of  our  agents  for  the  preceding  week  and  the  shaping 
of  instructions  for  the  operations  of  the  week  following. 
Mr.  Robert  Grier  Monroe  served  as  counsel  for  the 
general  committee  and  took  part  in  the  deliberations  of 
the  subcommittee.  It  was  through  Monroe  and  with 
the  help  of  Judge  Goff  that  we  were  able  to  secure  warrants 
to  be  filled  in  at  the  last  moment  with  the  names  of  the 
owners  or  occupants  of  the  houses  to  be  visited. 

The  work  of  Baldwin  as  chairman  was  most  devoted. 
He  was  already  a  busy  man  in  connection  with  his  service 
as  president  of  the  Long  Island  Railroad  and  with  the 
responsibility  that  he  had  accepted  as  a  trustee  of  Tuskee- 
gee  Institute  and  with  various  other  public  welfare  com- 
mittees and  associations.  He  found  himself  however 
keenly  interested  in  this  attempt  to  improve  the  trouble- 
some vice  conditions  of  our  great  city.  He  came  promptly 
into  conflict  with  certain  of  the  authorities  in  Tammany, 
who  threatened  to  make  the  business  of  the  corporations 
represented  by  Baldwin  (the  Long  Island  road  and  its 
owner  the  Pennsylvania  road)  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn 
difficult  unless  Baldwin's  superiors  would  bring  to  a  close 
his  annoying  investigations.  Baldwin  placed  his  resig- 
nation in  the  hands  of  the  authorities  in  Philadelphia  but 
they  realized  the  value  of  the  man  and  they  gave  evidence 
that  a  corporation  could  have  a  "soul, "  that  is  to  say  an 
understanding  of  public  duty.  The  operations  of  the  two 
companies  were  hampered  both  in  Brooklyn  and  in  Man- 


Committee  of  Fifteen  347 

hattan,  but  as  the  record  became  public,  the  Tammany 
officials  found  that  it  would  not  be  safe  to  continue  their 
interference.  I  believe  that  all  the  extensive  construction 
work  carried  on  at  that  time  by  the  Pennsylvania  people 
in  Brooklyn  and  in  Manhattan  was  completed  without 
any  surreptitious  payments  or  purchase  of  official  influence. 

Our  subcommittee  was  able  in  the  course  of  a  year's 
labours  to  bring  home  directly  to  Tammany  officials  and 
leaders  the  responsibility  for  certain  of  the  more  serious 
of  the  evils  complained  of.  It  showed  that  the  head- 
quarters of  the  cadet  system,  which  was  one  of  the  abomi- 
nations of  which  Dr.  Paddock  complained,  was  in  the  loth 
Ward,  and  that  the  chief  owner  of  the  company  that  was 
making  profit  out  of  the  abominable  traffic  was  a  well- 
known  Tammany  leader. 

We  did  succeed,  with  certain  measures  of  publicity,  and 
through  various  prosecutions  that  were  instituted,  in 
breaking  up  this  traffic  and  it  stayed  broken  up  for  some 
years.  We  also  succeeded  in  securing  the  dismissal  of  a 
number  of  police  officials  to  whom  had  been  traced  the 
dirty  money  paid  over  for  police  protection  by  the  man- 
agers of  the  traffic.  The  evidence  against  some  of  these 
police  officials  was  sufficient  to  bring  them  into  jail  and 
others  resigned  in  order  to  escape  investigation.  In 
securing  reports  of  the  moneys  paid  over  for  the  "pro- 
tection" of  illegal  undertakings,  we  estimated  (of  course 
only  approximately)  that  during  the  preceding  twelve 
months  no  less  than  two  million  and  a  half  dollars  had 
been  given  for  the  privilege  of  breaking  the  law.  The 
policy  of  Tammany  Hall  at  that  time  was  to  secure,  in 
co-operation  with  up-State  politicians,  the  enactment  of  the 
most  strenuous  laws  for  the  preservation  of  public  morality 
in  large  cities.  The  up-State  leaders  (largely  Republican) 
who  joined  with  Tammany  for  putting  such  laws  on  the 
statute-book  were  as  a  rule  quite  able  to  understand  their 


348  Work  for  the  City 

futility.  They  gave  their  co-operation  for ' '  consideration ' ' 
of  one  kind  or  another.  Back  of  these  leaders,  however, 
stood  thousands  of  conscientious  country  voters  who 
honestly  believed  that  in  casting  their  votes  for  a  measure 
that  should  prohibit  gambling  or  the  sale  of  beer  or  liquor  on 
the  Sabbath,  they  were  doing  their  part  as  good  citizens  to 
save  from  perdition  the  big  cities  (Sodom  and  Gomorrah). 
The  more  strenuous  the  prohibitions  of  the  law,  the  larger 
the  payments  that  had  to  be  made  by  those  whose 
business  made  it  necessary  for  them  to  break  the  law, 
and  the  greater  the  profits  of  the  Tammany  treasury  as  a 
whole  and  of  the  favoured  individuals  deputed  by  Tam- 
many to  handle  the  money. 

The  demoralization  of  the  police  force  was  not  the  least 
of  the  evils  of  such  a  system.  The  payments  made  by  the 
bad  houses  and  gambling  saloons  for  permission  to  con- 
tinue business,  and  by  the  liquor  saloons  for  freedom  from 
interference  while  selling  drinks  after  midnight  or  on 
Sunday,  went  for  the  most  part  into  the  hands  of  the 
roundsmen  or  possibly  of  the  sergeants  and  through  them 
to  the  captains  and  inspectors.  Each  man  who  handled 
the  money  got  his  portion  (at  a  rate  fixed  by  the  author- 
ities above),  and  the  final  payment,  less  these  "expenses 
of  collection,"  went  into  a  special  fund.  Part  of  the 
moneys  so  collected  was  utilized  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  district  benevolent  funds,  while  the  remainder  was 
retained  for  the  work  of  political  service  of  the  organiza- 
tion. The  benevolent  funds  were  distributed,  and  on  the 
whole  probably  honestly  distributed,  by  the  Tammany 
district  leaders.  There  is  no  question  but  that  those 
moneys  were  used  then  and  in  succeeding  years  for  the 
aid  of  people  needing  help.  The  only  requirement  made 
by  the  district  leader  in  finding  money  in  case  of  sickness, 
death  in  the  family,  accident,  or  unemployment  is  that 
the  voter  of  the  family  shall  be  on  the  Tammany  district 


Committee  of  Fifteen  349 

list  and  shall  give  service  at  the  primaries  and  at  the  polls. 
It  is  the  influence  of  this  district  benevolent  fund  and 
the  strength  of  the  local  organizations  which,  by  the  use 
of  this  money,  the  district  leaders  are  able  to  build  up, 
that  renders  so  difficult  any  successful  opposition  on  the 
part  of  good  citizens  generally  to  the  rule  of  Tammany 
Hall.  The  citizens  have,  in  fact,  no  such  moneys  available 
and  no  means  of  securing  them.  The  system  of  building 
up  local  district  associations  by  means  of  moneys  extracted 
from  the  community  recalls  the  methods  of  the  Medici 
in  Florence  in  the  early  sixteenth  century,  methods 
which  enabled  the  Medici  machine  to  remain  in  power  for 
three  or  four  generations. 

The  committee  terminated  its  labours  with  the  publica- 
tion of  a  report  on  the  social  evil.  The  publication 
committee  under  whose  direction  the  book  was  prepared 
comprised  Prof.  Seligman,  Felix  Adler,  and  myself.  I  took 
the  financial  risk  for  the  production  of  the  volume  as  the 
treasury  was  at  that  time  empty  and  in  fact  in  debt  to 
Mr.  Peabody.  I  was  able  later  to  report  that  the  book 
had  secured  a  sufficient  sale  not  only  to  pay  for  the  cost 
of  production  but  to  secure  proceeds  for  the  reduction  of 
the  deficiency. 

Looking  back  years  later  at  the  history  of  the  committee, 
it  is  difficult  to  say  that  it  accomplished  any  very  lasting 
results  towards  the  betterment  of  the  city.  The  light 
thrown  by  our  report  upon  the  relations  of  the  police 
with  crime  and  the  evidence  presented  by  us  to  the  effect 
that  police  authorities  and  others  were  making  large 
profits  out  of  the  protection  of  crime  conditions,  did  have 
an  immediate  service  in  arousing  public  opinion  and  in 
bringing  about  some  reformation  of  the  police  force.  It 
is  probable  that  since  the  work  of  our  committee,  condi- 
tions have  never  been  quite  so  bad  as  they  were  in  1903 
and  in  the  years  preceding.  It  is  certain,  however,  that 


350  Work  for  the  City 

renewed  efforts  of  this  general  character  must  be  made 
from  period  to  period  by  citizens  willing  to  give  their 
time,  their  money,  and  their  service,  if  the  city  is  not  to  be 
exploited  by  rascals  outside  and  inside  the  city  govern- 
ment. Eternal  vigilance  and  continued  labour  are  the 
necessary  price  of  decent  government  in  communities 
which  are  run  by  a  popular  vote. 

As  far  as  the  experience  of  the  committee  enabled 
the  members  to  arrive  at  definite  conclusions,  these  may  be 
cited  as  follows:  First,  they  were  decidedly  of  opinion 
that  for  the  management  of  the  liquor  trade  of  the  city 
of  New  York  arid  probably  for  the  entire  State,  a  system 
of  high  license  with  adequate  supervision  on  the  part  of 
trustworthy  authorities,  was  most  likely  to  meet  the 
conditions  and  requirements;  under  such  a  system,  the 
liquor  dealers  with  a  decent  standard  of  business  were 
themselves  prepared  to  extend  useful  co-operation  in 
crowding  out  of  business  the  men  who  made  the  liquor 
shop  a  centre  of  pestilence.  Secondly,  the  majority  of  the 
committee  were  inclined  to  the  view  that  the  attempt  to 
suppress  by  law  all  classes  of  gambling  had  not  proved 
successful  or  satisfactory.  The  wealthier  gamblers  were 
able  without  difficulty  to  buy  protection  from  the  police 
and  other  officials;  while  the  houses  instituted  to  satisfy 
the  gambling  instincts  of  the  poorer  classes  could  also 
usually  secure  protection  by  giving  as  a  consideration 
political  influence  and  also  by  making  pro  rata  contribu- 
tions. It  was  our  recommendation  that  temptation  should 
be  removed  as  far  as  possible  from  the  open  thoroughfares, 
but  that  the  attempt  should  be  given  up  of  pursuing 
gambling  conditions  into  quietly  kept  houses.  This  opin- 
ion did  not  mean  that  the  members  of  the  committee  were 
in  sympathy  with  the  gambling  instinct.  The  majority  of 
us  believed  it  to  be  a  very  serious  vice ;  but  it  was  a  vice 
which  in  our  judgment  could  not  be  controlled  by 


The  Committee  of  Fourteen  351 

statute.  The  conclusions  in  regard  to  the  method  of 
supervision  of  bad  houses  were  much  more  varied.  Our 
volume  of  report  was  chiefly  devoted  to  this  subject  and 
presented  without  any  final  recommendation  on  the  part 
of  the  committee  as  a  whole  the  difficulties  under  one 
method  of  regulation  or  another.  The  problem  is  one 
that  is  still  to  be  worked  out  for  New  York  as  for  all  the 
great  cities  of  the  world. 

The  Committee  of  Fourteen.  In  1905,  a  Committee 
of  Fourteen  was  organized  under  the  initiative  and  chair- 
manship of  the  Reverend  John  P.  Peters,  rector  of  St. 
Michael's.  Doctor  Peters  was  not  content  with  the 
labour  required  for  the  conscientious  and  effective  manage- 
ment of  a  big  city  parish.  He  held  himself  always  in 
readiness  for  work  for  the  community  at  large,  and 
his  capacity  and  devotion  brought  him  naturally  into 
leadership. 

The  special  purpose  of  the  committee  was  to  work  for 
the  suppression  of  the  so-called  Raines  Law  hotels. 
Senator  Raines  of  Canandaigua  was  responsible  for  the 
enactment,  in  1902,  of  a  bill  which  legalized  the  sale 
of  liquor  (at  hours  prohibited  for  liquor  saloons  generally) 
in  buildings  of  a  character  that  could  be  described  as 
"hotels."  The  managers  of  a  number  of  saloons  wishing 
to  secure  the  privilege  of  carrying  on  their  trade  on  Sun- 
days and  after  midnight  on  weekdays,  arranged  to  meet, 
in  form  at  least,  the  requirements  of  the  law  so  that  their 
saloons  could  be  classed  as  "hotels."  They  provided 
the  requisite  number  of  bedrooms  (I  think  it  was  six) 
and  they  provided  also  that  food  should  always  be  served 
with  the  drink  sold.  The  latter  requirement  was  met  by 
having  on  the  table  a  perpetual  sandwich  which  the  regular 
visitor  was  of  course  experienced  enough  to  let  alone,  but 
for  which  he  had  to  make  payment. 

The  addition  of  six  or  more  bedrooms  to  a  drinking 


352  Work  for  the  City 

saloon  involved  an  expense  that  had  to  be  met  in  some 
fashion;  and  as  a  result  these  Raines  Law  buildings  came 
to  be  little  more  than  houses  of  assignation.  The  more 
reputable  among  the  liquor  dealers  and  particularly  the 
managers  of  the  beer  saloons  (which  were  in  large  part 
under  the  ownership  of  the  big  brewers)  were  quite  pre- 
pared to  co-operate  with  the  authorities  or  with  any 
citizens  who  might  work  for  the  repression  of  these  Raines 
Law  hotels,  the  keepers  of  which  were  securing  an  unfair 
advantage  against  their  more  decent  competitors. 

I  was  asked  to  take  service  on  this  Committee  of  Four- 
teen because  my  experience  in  the  work  of  the  earlier  Com- 
mittee of  Fifteen  had  given  me  some  knowledge  of  the 
conditions  with  which  we  were  to  contend.  Other  mem- 
bers of  the  committee  were  Isaac  Newton  Seligman,  always 
ready  for  citizen's  service,  Mr.  Whitin,  who  served  first  as 
secretary  and  later  as  chairman,  Mr.  Beattie,  Mrs.  Bald- 
win, Mrs.  Simkovitch,  and  Mr.  Slade. 

The  chief  hindrance  in  the  work  of  the  committee  was 
the  apathy  of  the  State  authorities  charged  with  the  super- 
vision of  the  liquor  saloons.  There  was  also,  for  a  time 
at  least,  difficulty  in  securing  proper  attention  from  the 
courts  for  the  evidence  collected  by  our  committee  of  law- 
breaking  on  the  part  of  the  liquor  dealers.  This  committee 
was  confronted  with  the  same  conditions  that  had  called 
for  the  fight  made  by  the  Committee  of  Fifteen.  The 
members  of  the  police  and  the  authorities  back  of 
the  police  were  gaining  so  much  money  by  the  sale  of  the 
privilege  of  breaking  the  law  that  they  had  a  very  direct 
business  interest,  on  the  one  hand,  against  having  the  law 
modified  and  its  penalties  made  less  strenuous,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  against  any  consistent  enforcement  of  its 
provisions. 

John  Peters  was,  as  always  in  any  work  in  which  he 
engaged,  the  life  of  our  undertaking.  He  was  unceasing 


A  Tammany  Libel  Suit  353 

in  compelling  the  State  authorities  to  take  action  in  the 
cases  in  which  their  action  was  essential,  and  he  was  what 
the  boys  call  "a  holy  terror"  for  the  police  officials  and 
the  judges  of  petty  sessions.  He  was  ably  seconded  by 
Mr.  Whitin  and  others,  and  in  the  course  of  three  or  four 
years  our  committee  succeeded  in  reducing  by  two  thirds 
the  number  of  the  Raines  Law  hotels  in  the  borough  of 
Manhattan  and  in  putting  the  remaining  third  under  such 
supervision  that  they  had  to  behave. 

The  work  of  the  committee  was  simply  another  of  the 
many  examples  of  the  necessity  of  continued  action  on  the 
part  of  our  citizens  to  secure  from  the  officials  an  adequate 
enforcement  of  the  law. 

A  Tammany  Libel  Suit.  Some  years  later,  I  had  the 
annoyance  of  being  defendant  in  a  libel  suit  brought  by  an 
ex-Tammany  police  official,  the  damages  of  which  were 
placed  at  $50,000.  My  name  was  on  the  black-list  of 
Tammany  and  certain  of  the  officials  who  had  been  an- 
noyed at  my  industry  in  the  grand  jury  room  and  my  as- 
sociation later  with  the  operations  of  the  Committee  of 
Fifteen  had  been  looking  for  an  opportunity  of  "getting 
even"  with  this  troublesome  citizen. 

During  one  of  the  municipal  campaigns  which  resulted 
in  the  election  of  a  Tammany  Mayor,  I  took  occasion, 
in  a  letter  brought  into  print  in  the  New  York  Times,  to 
characterize  unfavourably  a  number  of  the  men  who  had 
during  the  preceding  two  years  been  appointed  to  office 
under  Tammany  influence.  They  were  a  very  bad  lot 
and  their  service  had  been  costly  for  the  city.  The  list 
was  a  long  one  and  the  statements  in  regard  to  the  doings 
of  the  various  officials  were  based  upon  their  public 
record.  I  had  personal  acquaintance  with  no  one  of  the 
men  referred  to.  The  list  ended  with  the  name  of  an 
important  Tammany  leader,  Mr.  M.,  who  had  passed 
the  larger  portion  of  his  active  life  on  the  police  force. 

23 


354  Work  for  the  City 

At  the  time  of  our  presentment  against  D.'s  manage- 
ment of  the  force,  M.  had  been  an  inspector  and  his  dis- 
trict had  been  one  of  those  brought  in  our  presentment 
into  special  condemnation.  A  year  or  two  earlier,  M.'s 
name  had  come  before  the  public  in  the  investigations 
into  police  conditions  in  New  York  conducted  by  the 
Lexow  Committee  appointed  by  the  State  leaders.  The 
evidence  given  before  this  committee  had  been  brought 
into  print  at  the  time  by  the  newspapers  and  had  been 
reprinted  later  in  a  series  of  six  bulky  volumes.  It  was, 
therefore,  a  matter  of  public  record. 

I  had  knowledge  at  the  time  of  the  Lexow  investigation 
of  very  damnatory  evidence  brought  against  M. ;  and 
when  preparing  my  letter  for  the  Times  I  had  refreshed 
my  memory  of  this  evidence  by  an  examination  of  the 
volumes  of  Lexow's  reports.  It  was  in  evidence  in  these 
reports  that  inspector  M.  had  been  paid  $50.00  a  week 
from  one  bad  house  and  corresponding  sums  from  other 
similar  houses,  and  that  as  a  result  of  such  payments  these 
houses  had  been  left  undisturbed  by  the  roundsmen. 
The  most  important  portion  of  this  evidence  had  been 
given  by  Captain  S.,  who  swore  that  he  had  himself  paid 
over  to  the  inspector  the  money  that  had  been  handed  to 
him  by  the  roundsman  delegated  for  the  purpose.  Rounds- 
man, captain,  and  inspector  each  had  his  share  of  the  dirty 
fee.  One  would  have  supposed  that  an  official  charged 
with  such  an  offence  would,  if  his  conscience  was  clear,  have 
promptly  called  for  an  investigation.  M.  took  a  very 
different  course.  He  at  once  resigned  from  the  force  in 
order  to  escape  being  called  to  account  by  the  new  com- 
missioner, Roosevelt.  Such  an  investigation  as  Roosevelt 
would  have  held  would  undoubtedly  have  resulted  in  the 
inspector's  dismissal.  M.  had  during  the  years  referred 
to  in  my  letter  to  the  Times  been  serving  as  commissioner 
of  police.  I  took  the  ground  that  the  appointment  as 


A  Tammany  Libel  Suit  355 

commissioner  of  a  man  who  had  been  shown  up  as  a  mis- 
doer  was  a  disgrace  to  the  city  and  that  to  such  appoint- 
ments could  justly  be  charged  the  demoralization  of  the 
police  force.  This  was  the  libel  of  which  M.  complained. 

At  the  time  the  suit  was  brought,  he  was  no  longer 
chief  of  police.  He  had  responsibilities  in  the  manage- 
ment of  Tammany  Hall  and  he  also  held  an  impor- 
tant post  as  director  of  one  of  the  Catholic  benevolent 
funds ;  and  as  far  as  I  could  learn  this  fund  was  exceed- 
ingly well  administered.  It  took  three  years  to  bring 
my  libel  suit  to  trial.  During  that  time,  I  received 
repeated  suggestions  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  suit  if  I 
would  make  some  payment,  the  amount  suggested  rang- 
ing from  $5000  down  to  $1000.  Any  payment  would,  of 
course,  have  been  an  admission  on  my  part  that  my  state- 
ments were  not  justified.  I  preferred  to  have  the  trial 
pushed  to  its  conclusion  and  to  base  the  defence  on  what  is 
called  "justification"  of  the  statement. 

The  matter  came  up  before  Judge  G.  The  Judge 
was  a  Tammany  nominee,  but  had  recently  been  re- 
elected  for  fifteen  years  and  he  was,  therefore,  in  a 
position  to  act  (as  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  very  much 
preferred  to  act)  with  full  measure  of  independence.  It  is 
certain  that  during  the  three  days'  proceedings,  he  treated 
me  with  no  little  consideration,  and  his  charge  to  the  jury 
must  have  had  large  influence  in  their  decision.  My 
counsel,  my  old  friend  Stephen  H.  Olin,  submitted  in 
support  of  the  justification  of  my  statement  the  printed 
volumes  of  the  Lexow  committee.  The  admission  of  these 
volumes  as  evidence  was  stoutly  contested  on  the  part  of 
M.  If  they  could  not  be  admitted,  my  defence  of  justi- 
fication would  fall  to  the  ground  and  the  verdict  would 
certainly  have  gone  against  me.  The  court,  however,  took 
the  position  that  these  volumes  did  constitute  a  public 
document  and  that  a  citizen  interested  in  public  matters 


356  Work  for  the  City 

had  a  right,  particularly  during  a  municipal  campaign 
and  in  connection  with  the  record  of  candidates  in  such 
campaign,  to  make  reference  to  a  public  document.  It 
was  this  decision  of  the  court  that  undoubtedly  saved 
the  case  for  me.  The  jury  was  fortunately  made  up 
largely  of  Hebrews.  If  they  had  been  Catholics,  it  would 
have  been  very  difficult  to  secure  a  verdict  against  one 
of  the  managers  of  a  great  Catholic  society. 

The  decision  was  in  substance  that  the  statement 
complained  of  had  been  made  by  me,  which  had,  of  course, 
never  been  denied ;  that  the  charges  in  it  were  bitter  and 
derogatory,  but  that  the  plaintiff's  character  had  not 
been  injured.  It  was  a  fortunate  escape  and  I  have 
realized  later  in  reports  from  other  active  citizens  who  had 
come  into  similar  difficulty  how  serious  the  results  might 
be  for  a  citizen  who  like  myself  did  not  have  any  thousands 
of  dollars  to  spare. 

The  Baltimore  Convention  of  1912.  In  April,  1912,  I 
found  myself,  not  for  the  first  time,  keenly  interested  in  the 
issues  of  the  coming  presidential  campaign.  I  had  since 
1880,  the  year  in  which  the  friends  of  General  Grant 
made  the  ill-advised  attempt  to  secure  for  the  General 
a  third  term,  classed  myself  with  the  Democrats.  During 
the  period  of  the  war  when  the  Republican  party  accepted 
the  task  of  maintaining  the  existence  of  the  Republic,  I 
had,  partly  from  my  old  anti-slavery  convictions  and  partly 
because  I  thought  the  Republic  worth  preserving,  called 
myself  a  Republican.  In  the  later  years,  however,  when 
there  was  no  further  question  of  fighting  for  nationality 
and  when  the  Republican  party  had  come  under  the 
domination  of  certain  commercially  inclined  leaders  who 
were  utilizing  the  protective  taxes  to  build  up  a  great 
series  of  business  interests  in  alliance  with  government 
and  in  large  part  maintained  by  government  at  the  expense 
of  the  citizens  as  a  whole,  I  had  no  more  use  for  the  Republi- 


The  Baltimore  Convention  of  1912     357 

can  party.  I  had,  under  my  father's  sound  counsel,  been 
a  pupil  of  David  A.  Wells  and  had  based  my  economic 
theories  of  government  policy  and  of  citizens'  action  on  his 
teachings.  I  was  prepared,  therefore,  when  the  re-organ- 
ized Democratic  party  was  maintaining  a  sound  policy 
in  regard  to  the  relations  of  government  with  business 
and  was  insisting  that  the  protective  taxes,  instituted  for 
the  special  war  needs  of  the  treasury,  should  now  be 
abrogated,  to  give  my  vote  and  my  work  for  the  Democrats. 
Unfortunately,  these  Democrats,  while  in  my  judgment 
fairly  sound  in  their  theories  as  to  protection,  speedily 
developed  what  I  could  not  but  call  rotten  ideas  of  finance. 
Remembering  as  they  did  the  facility  with  which,  during 
the  war  period,  the  country  had  been  provided  with  cur- 
rency by  the  government  printing-presses,  and  oblivious  of 
the  serious  interference  with  business  conditions  and 
with  national  credit  that  had  been  brought  about  through 
the  steady  depreciation  of  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
paper  dollar,  they  proposed  to  continue  and  even  to 
extend  what  they  called  "the  money-making  power"  of 
the  government.  They  refused  to  learn  wisdom  from  the 
long  series  of  experiences  of  other  nations  which  had 
experimented  with  the  payment  of  debts  personal  and 
national  by  means  of  an  irredeemable  paper  currency. 
Later,  when  the  Democratic  leaders  had,  through  the 
persistent  opposition  of  the  wiser  men  in  the  party,  mainly, 
of  course,  the  merchants  of  the  Eastern  States  whose  inter- 
national relations  gave  them  a  better  understanding  of  the 
real  foundations  of  prosperous  trade,  been  compelled  to 
give  up  the  idea  of  "creating  value "  (that  is  to  say  of  mak- 
ing money)  by  the  printing-press  and  of  turning  out  dollars 
whose  value  was  to  be  based  upon  "the  natural  wealth  of 
the  whole  country,"  they  fell  back  upon  what  might  be 
called  the  second  line  of  defence  of  believers  in  fiat  money. 
They  were  finally  persuaded  that  it  was  not  safe  to  attempt 


358  Work  for  the  City 

to  use  the  government  authority  to  secure  the  entire 
exchange  value  for  the  government  fiat ;  but  if  they  could 
not  ma1  e  fiat  government  money  of  100  cents  on  the 
dollar,  they  held  that  government  could  at  least  be  utilized 
to  give  to  a  fiat  dollar  worth  50  cents  the  additional  50  cents 
"  value  "  required.  They  fell  back,  therefore,  on  the  silver 
dollar  which,  on  the  basis  of  coinage  of  the  time  and  with 
the  value  of  silver  in  the  world's  markets,  had  an  inter- 
national or  exchange  value  of  about  50  cents  on  the  dollar, 
and  they  insisted  that  the  fiat  of  the  government  should  be 
accepted  as  sufficient  to  make  this  fraudulent  coin  a  full 
quittance  for  a  dollar's  worth  of  indebtedness  whether 
personal  or  national.  The  silver  heresy  proved  more 
difficult  to  contend  with  and  to  dislodge  from  party  and 
from  national  councils  than  the  earlier  paper  theories. 
Not  a  few  of  the  men  of  my  group  who  were  interested 
in  undermining  the  protective  policy  which  had  been 
accepted  for  the  nation,  were  compelled  to  vote  with  the 
Republicans  because  the  financial  heresies  of  the  Demo- 
crats seemed  to  us  a  more  serious  peril  to  the  state  than 
protection.  We  got  into  the  habit  during  the  elections 
that  followed  of  voting,  so  to  speak,  for  McKinley  when- 
ever the  Democrats  nominated  Bryan.  We  did  have  the 
satisfaction  of  helping  in  two  elections  to  secure  for  Presi- 
dent that  sturdy  advocate  of  sound  money  and  com- 
mon-sense government,  Grover  Cleveland.  On  another 
election,  I,  in  common  with  a  good  many  other  men  of  my 
group,  gave  my  vote  for  the  Palmer  and  Buckner  ticket, 
the  campaign  for  which  was  based  upon  the  best  presi- 
dential platform  ever  presented  in  this  country.  This 
platform,  as  shaped  by  our  committee  in  Indianapolis,  was 
made  not  to  attract  votes  but  to  express  convictions.  It 
is  my  belief  that  sometime  in  the  not  distant  future  the 
principles  of  the  Indianapolis  platform  will  be  accepted 
by  some  party  of  national  organization  that  will  attract  the 


The  Baltimore  Convention  of  1912     359 

majority  of  voters  of  the  country  and  will  place  upon  a 
sound  foundation  the  policy  of  the  nation. 

In  the  spring  of  1912,  the  cleavage  that  had  been  brought 
about  in  the  Republican  party  through  the  personal 
ambition,  amounting  I  think  to  undue  subjectivity,  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  gave  promise  of  success  for  the 
Democrats  if  they  could  only  be  brought  to  unite  upon  a 
candidate  who  should  be  personally  qualified  and  who 
should  represent  a  sound  and  progressive  national  policy. 
The  man  whose  name  was  brought  to  the  front  with  the 
largest  support  of  the  West  and  the  South- West,  Clark  of 
Missouri,  Speaker  of  the  House,  did  not  meet  the  first 
requirement.  He  had  had  no  such  training  as  could  meet 
the  requirements  necessary  for  the  post.  He  was  a  good- 
natured,  hail-fellow-well-met  "statesman"  whose  lack  of 
responsibility  was  fairly  well  illustrated  by  the  utterance 
blurted  out  while  he  was  still  Speaker  that  the  reciprocity 
policy  of  the  United  States  was  based  upon  the  expectation 
of  annexing  Canada.  This  utterance  of  a  man  holding 
the  second  position  in  the  government  was  assuredly  a  very 
important  factor  in  bringing  about  the  defeat  in  Canada  of 
the  Laurier  government  which  was  supporting  the  reci- 
procity policy.  A  much  better  qualified  candidate  was 
Underwood  of  Alabama  who,  as  leader  of  the  Democratic 
majority  in  the  House,  had  given  evidence  of  clearness 
of  head,  of  knowledge  of  conditions,  and  of  real  capacity 
as  a  leader.  The  third  important  candidate,  Governor 
Harmon  of  Ohio,  had  in  his  favour  an  excellent  record 
for  his  administration  of  a  State  which  while  heretofore 
Republican  had  twice  given  to  Harmon  the  honour  of  the 
governorship.  Harmon  was  somewhat  old  for  the  post, 
and  he  was  not  likely  to  prove  an  incisive  or  an  effective 
leader.  The  man  in  whose  candidacy  my  group  was 
interested  was  Woodrow  Wilson,  Governor  of  New  Jersey. 
Wilson  was  an  economist  and  a  scholar  in  history.  He 


360  Work  for  the  City 

had  won  distinction  as  president  of  Princeton,  but  through 
what  must  be  admitted  by  his  friends  to  have  been  a  lack 
of  adequate  and  proper  understanding  of  rather  complex 
conditions,  he  had  failed  to  secure  in  Princeton  an  assured 
success.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  as  Governor  of  New 
Jersey  won  deserved  repute  for  courage  in  reforming  bad 
political  conditions  and  in  putting  out  of  power  the  boss 
and  local  machine  who  were  responsible  for  such  conditions. 
The  powers  of  Tammany  Hall  were  bitterly  opposed  to  the 
nomination  of  Wilson  and  the  boss,  Murphy,  had  secured 
such  a  grasp  of  the  organization  of  the  party  that  he  was 
able  to  control  absolutely  the  votes  of  the  ninety  delegates 
sent  to  the  Convention  by  New  York.  These  ninety  votes 
were  throughout  the  sessions  cast  en  bloc  by  Murphy. 

I  helped  in  the  organization  of  what  was  called  the 
Wilson  Conference  Committee,  the  leader  in  which  was 
Thomas  M.  Osborne,  late  Mayor  of  Auburn.  His  active 
lieutenant  was  young  Franklin  D.  Roosevelt,  a  cousin  of 
the  great  Theodore.  Franklin's  father  was  I  heard,  a 
supporter  of  Theodore,  but  the  son  had  been  ready  to 
mark  out  for  himself  his  political  course.  The  work  of  our 
Conference  committee  was  to  make  clear  to  the  delegates 
at  Baltimore  that  the  Murphy  vote  did  not  express  the 
opinion  of  the  State.  Our  action  was  taken  so  late  that 
it  was  not  possible  to  secure  hotel  accommodations.  We 
hired  sleeping  cars  from  two  of  the  railroad  companies, 
and  we  had  to  take  our  night's  rest  in  the  yards  of  the 
railroads  in  cars  that  had  stood  under  the  hot  sun  during 
the  day.  Under  the  circumstances,  the  rest  was  unre- 
freshing.  We  had  taken  pains  to  secure  from  competent 
representatives  who  had  been  ordered  to  travel  through  the 
State  for  the  purpose,  expressions  of  opinion  from  forty  of 
the  sixty  counties  of  the  State.  We  had  also  been  able  to 
bring  into  print  in  a  number  of  the  county  papers  strong 
expressions  of  preference  for  Wilson.  Our  representatives 


The  Baltimore  Convention  of  1912      361 

found  throughout  the  State  some  preference  for  Under- 
wood and  a  smaller  backing  for  Harmon,  but  the  great  bulk 
of  Democratic  opinion  was  supporting  Wilson.  There  was 
practically  no  sentiment  for  Clark.  In  face  of  this  fact, 
Murphy  was  able,  through  his  control  of  the  State  machine, 
to  cast  the  ninety  votes  of  the  delegation  steadily  for  Clark. 
On  the  fourth  day  of  the  Convention,  the  delegates  were 
tired  and  had  spent  most  of  their  money  and  they  wanted 
to  go  home.  The  difficulty  was  such  as  had  obtained  not 
infrequently  in  previous  presidential  conventions  when  the 
delegates  had  taken  the  ground  that  the  leaders  had  killed 
each  other  off  and  that  they  had  got  to  find  some  "in- 
between"  man  who  could  unite  enough  votes  to  secure  the 
necessary  two  thirds.  It  is  certain  that  such  compromise 
candidate  could  have  been  nominated  only  with  the 
approval  of  Mr.  Murphy  and  his  Tammany  gang.  It  is 
probable,  in  fact,  that  Murphy  as  the  leader  of  the  only 
unbroken  block  of  votes  of  ninety  would  have  had  in  his 
hands  the  actual  selection  of  the  candidate.  The  risk  was 
serious  that  the  Convention  might  have  the  mortification 
of  accepting  as  nominee  a  man  selected  and  controlled 
by  Murphy  and  his  financial  backers,  of  whom  the  most 
important,  Thomas  F.  Ryan,  was  a  member  of  the  New 
York  delegation.  This  result,  which  would  have  been  a 
grievous  disaster  for  the  country,  was  prevented  only 
through  the  persistency,  the  courage,  and  the  intelligently 
exerted  influence  of  our  leader  Osborne.  He  had  been  la- 
bouring night  and  day  with  the  delegates  to  make  clear  that 
the  representation  of  New  York  in  the  Convention  did  not 
voice  the  opinion  of  the  Empire  State  but  was  a  travesty 
and  a  fraud.  He  finally  succeeded  on  the  forty-fourth  bal- 
lot in  inducing  the  delegates  from  Indiana,  who  had  been 
giving  their  support  to  Marshall,  to  agree  to  make  a 
break  if  they  could  do  this  in  company  with  one  or  more 
other  States.  Osborne  brought  to  the  same  way  of  think- 


362  Work  for  the  City 

ing  the  delegates  of  Illinois  and  of  Kentucky,  and  the 
progress  made  on  the  forty-fifth  ballot  secured  on  the 
forty-sixth  the  nomination  of  Wilson.  The  surprise 
and  disgust  of  the  Murphy-Ryan  group  was  so  great 
that  they  did  not  have  the  sense  to  swing  the  ninety  votes 
of  New  York  into  line  in  time  to  have  these  votes  consti- 
tute a  part  of  the  two  thirds  required  for  the  nomination. 
The  national  democracy  had  decided  against  Tammany 
Hall  and  from  that  point  the  anti-Tammany  Democrats 
of  the  State  could,  during  the  campaign  that  was  to  follow, 
claim  to  be  the  "regulars"  as  against  the  Tammany 
"faction." 

The  work  of  our  independent  Democratic  organization 
was  continued  after  the  nomination  of  Wilson  and  Mar- 
shall for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  control  by  Murphy 
of  the  State  convention  at  Syracuse  and  of  heading  off  the 
renomination  of  Governor  Dix.  The  Governor  had  shown 
himself  a  weak  tool  of  Tammany.  Under  the  orders  of 
Murphy,  he  had  done  much  to  undermine  the  civil  service 
system  of  the  State.  His  renomination  would  not  only 
have  been  an  injury  to  the  State  but  would  have  imperilled 
the  Democratic  vote  for  the  presidential  candidate.  We 
succeeded  through  our  representatives  at  Syracuse  in 
securing  an  open  conduct  of  the  business  of  the  conven- 
tion. The  methods  represented  a  decided  advance  over 
those  of  the  convention  of  two  years  earlier  when  the 
selection  by  Murphy  of  Dix  was  being  called  in  the 
streets  before  the  convention  had  an  opportunity  of 
passing  upon  the  candidate  selected  by  its  delegates. 
We  also  succeeded  in  heading  off  the  renomination  of  Dix. 
With  this  limited  success  we  had  to  be  satisfied.  The 
candidate  finally  selected,  Mr.  Sulzer,  an  old-time  oppo- 
nent of  civil  service  reform  and  a  persistent  and  consistent 
defender  of  Tammany  methods,  could  not  be  accepted 
as  satisfactory.  We  had,  in  advance  of  the  convention, 


The  Baltimore  Convention  of  1912      363 

put  into  nomination  under  petition  a  State  ticket  which 
could  be  utilized  by  our  representatives  as  a  threat  to  head 
off  the  renomination  of  Dix,  and  I  had  myself  been  per- 
suaded for  the  purpose  of  giving  this  needed  support  to 
the  Democratic  revolt  to  let  my  name  go  upon  this  ticket 
for  the  post  of  secretary  of  state.  The  ticket  was  headed 
with  the  name  for  governor  of  Mr.  F.  W.  Hinrichs,  an 
old-time  Democratic  reformer  who  was  well  qualified  for 
the  post.  It  was  thought  possible  that  we  might  deem  it 
worth  while  to  keep  the  ticket  in  the  field  and  by  obtaining 
not  less  than  10,000  votes  secure  the  right  to  a  column  in 
the  official  ballot  for  the  elections  following.  We  found, 
however,  after  the  Syracuse  convention  that  there  was 
sufficient  difference  of  opinion  among  the  members  of  the 
Empire  State  democracy  to  make  it  impracticable  to  secure 
the  unanimity  that  was  essential  for  carrying  on  any  kind 
of  a  State  campaign.  The  ticket  was  therefore  with- 
drawn and  we  decided  to  concentrate  our  efforts,  as  far 
as  the  State  campaign  was  concerned,  upon  the  selection 
of  assemblymen  of  independent  character,  and  further  to 
confirm  and  extend  the  organization  for  work  in  the 
coming  municipal  campaign  in  the  city  of  New  York. 
This  record  is  noted  mainly  in  order  to  emphasize  what 
can  be  done  on  the  part  of  a  few  public-spirited  and 
energetic  men  who  want  nothing  for  themselves, 
in  influencing  the  decision  of  a  great  national  issue. 

Thomas  Mott  Osborne  should  in  the  political  history  of 
the  country  receive  due  credit  for  heading  off  the  disgrace 
of  a  White  House  controlled  by  Tammany  Hall. 

The  Empire  State  democracy  was  able  to  render  ser- 
vice in  the  municipal  campaign  of  1913,  which  resulted 
in  the  success  of  the  Citizens'  Ticket.  Mr.  Roosevelt  and 
Mr.  Osborne,  being  up-state  voters,  were  not  in  a  position 
to  take  part  in  this  municipal  work,  but  the  campaign  in 
the  city  was  well  directed  by  Mr.  Hanson,  Mr.  Hopper, 


364  Work  for  the  City 

Mr.  Henderson,  and  others.  This  municipal  election  re- 
sulted in  securing  what  I  believe  to  be  the  best  adminis- 
tration that  New  York  City  has  had  since  I  have  been  a 
voter.  The  choice  for  Mayor  of  the  Empire  State  democ- 
racy (later  known  as  the  Jeffersonian  Alliance)  was 
Mr.  McAneny;  owing  chiefly  to  the  opposition  of  the 
"  municipal  operation  "  men,  Mr.  McAneny  failed  to  se- 
cure the  nomination,  but  we  were  prepared  to  give  cordial 
support  to  the  candidacy  of  Mr.  Mitchel.  Mr.  Mitchel's 
administration  will  receive  large  credit  for  the  completion 
of  the  great  work  of  subway  construction  which  had  been 
initiated  under  the  mayorality  of  Mr.  Gaynor.  The  re- 
sponsibility for  the  shaping  of  this  work  and  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  interests  of  the  city  rests  under  the  present 
administration,  as  it  rested  during  the  time  of  Mayor 
Gaynor,  chiefly  with  Mr.  McAneny.  He  is  the  member 
of  the  Board  of  Estimate  and  Apportionment  who  has 
had  in  his  hands  from  the  outset  the  direction  of  the 
construction  plans  and  whose  service  has  been  of  first 
importance  in  bringing  these  plans  to  the  successful 
conclusion  which  is  so  important  for  the  welfare  of  the 
city. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THe  FigHt  for  CopyrigHt 

1886-1915 

In  1886,  I  was  interested  in  bringing  again  into  organ- 
ization the  American  Publishers'  Copyright  League.  As 
far  back  as  1840,  just  before  leaving  New  York  for  Lon- 
don, my  father  had  been  active  in  the  work  of  the  first 
Publishers'  Copyright  League.  In  1851,  a  year  or  two 
after  his  return  to  New  York,  he  interested  himself  in 
renewing  its  operations.  During  his  sojourn  in  Lon- 
don, he  had  been  increasingly  impressed  with  the  im- 
portance, for  the  interests  not  only  of  literature  but  of 
international  relations,  in  bringing  to  a  close  the  piracy 
which  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  was  causing  great  in- 
justice to  literary  producers  and  which  was  giving  constant 
causes  for  international  irritation  and  criticism.  In  a 
volume  entitled  American  Facts  which  my  father  brought 
into  print  in  London  in  1847,  he  had  pointed  out  that 
the  "appropriation"  of  literature  by  piratical  reprinters 
was,  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  books  available, 
just  as  active  in  London  as  it  was  in  New  York,  Boston, 
and  Philadelphia.  He  was  able,  in  fact,  to  print  in 
this  volume  a  very  considerable  list  of  American  books 
that  had  been  taken,  without  arrangement  and  without 
compensation,  by  English  publishers.  In  some  cases, 

365 


366  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

the  names  of  the  authors  had  been  replaced  by  English 
names  which  in  the  judgment  of  English  publishers  might 
help  to  bring  the  books  into  sale.  Not  a  few  of  these 
English  editions  were  seriously  garbled,  thus  bringing 
upon  the  author,  in  addition  to  the  annoyance  of  the  loss 
of  proceeds  legitimately  belonging  to  him,  the  serious 
personal  grievance  of  having  his  work  wrongly  presented 
to  his  readers.  The  English  books  which  were  finding  sale 
in  the  United  States  were  at  the  same  time  being  appropri- 
ated in  still  larger  numbers,  partly  because  there  was  more 
literature  to  take,  and  partly,  of  course,  because  there  was 
a  rapidly  increasing  American  public  which  was  active- 
minded  and  which  was  prepared,  if  the  prices  could  be 
made  sufficiently  low,  to  buy  increasing  numbers  of  books. 
The  league  for  which  my  father  acted  as  secretary 
continued  in  existence  until  his  death  in  1872.  This 
association  was  responsible  for  the  introduction  in  Con- 
gress of  a  number  of  bills  having  for  their  purpose  the 
bringing  about  of  international  copyright  relations,  first, 
and  most  importantly  of  course,  with  England,  and  sec- 
ondly with  the  other  literature-producing  countries  of  the 
world.  There  were  also  during  this  period  three  separate 
attempts  to  secure  copyright  with  Great  Britain  by  means 
of  an  individual  treaty.  My  father  was  always  hopeful 
that  in  the  near  future  "And  possibly,  Haven,"  he  would 
say,  "next  year,  we  shall  have  international  copyright." 
But  on  one  ground  or  another,  the  long  series  of  efforts 
failed  to  produce  any  satisfactory  results.  The  Congress- 
men were  ignorant  of  the  subject  and  not  easily  to  be 
interested  in  it.  To  the  general  public,  the  idea  of  prop- 
erty in  literature  was  something  of  which  there  was  no 
general  understanding  and  in  which  there  was  but  a  very 
limited  interest.  It  was  only  a  few  of  the  more  intelli- 
gent editors  who  as  far  back  as  1872  were  prepared  to  give 
any  attention  to  the  subject  in  their  journals.  The  feeling 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  367 

was  rather  general  that  any  copyright  statute  must 
increase  the  cost,  and  possibly  diminish  the  supply,  of 
books  and  that  the  educational  development  of  the 
country  was  more  or  less  dependent  upon  the  possibility  of 
getting  the  best  literature  at  the  smallest  cost.  There 
was  also  a  lack  of  harmony  of  opinion  and  therefore,  of 
course,  of  consistency  of  action,  on  the  part  of  those 
who  were  in  form,  at  least,  working  to  bring  about  inter- 
national copyright.  Some  of  the  best  known  of  the 
publishing  houses  had  been  doing  a  profitable  business 
in  bringing  into  print,  very  promptly  after  the  publication 
on  the  other  side,  American  editions  of  English  books 
likely  to  prove  of  interest  to  American  readers.  The 
facilities  possessed  by  these  houses  with  transatlantic 
correspondents  for  getting  early  "copy"  for  the  printers, 
and  their  trade  connections  throughout  the  country, 
made  it  possible  for  them,  without  the  protection  of  law, 
to  get  the  better  of  their  smaller  and  less  well-known 
competitors  first  in  the  promptness  of  publication  and  later 
in  the  cheapness  of  the  books.  These  publishers  made  a 
practice,  however,  of  paying  the  transatlantic  author  a 
certain  honorarium  for  his  authorization.  They  took  what 
they  chose  and  they  paid  what  they  chose,  and  the  author 
with  no  legal  rights  was  thankful  to  get  ten  pounds  when  he 
could  not  get  fifty  and  was  very  ready  in  receiving  fifty  to 
give  a  full  quittance  of  any  claim  on  the  general  proceeds. 
The  largest  business  of  this  kind  was  done  by  the  old 
Methodist  concern  of  the  Harper  Brothers  and  the  Harpers 
were,  therefore,  during  the  period  back  of  1892,  never  very 
keenly  interested  in  bringing  about  an  international  copy- 
right arrangement  under  which  all  the  English  authors,  and 
the  American  publishers  authorized  to  represent  these  au- 
thors, would  be  placed  upon  the  same  footing  before  the 
law.  The  Harpers  were,  from  an  early  date,  members  of 
the  publishers'  copyright  association,  but  they  were  usually 


368  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

able  by  some  difference  of  opinion  at  the  critical  moment 
to  emphasize  that,  however  desirable  in  itself  international 
copyright  might  be,  "the  particular  measure"  that  had  at 
that  time  been  put  into  shape  was  not  going  to  be  satis- 
factory. They  took  the  same  part  of  quiet  antagonism 
to  the  several  treaties  that  were  proposed.  The  action 
of  the  other  great  publishing  house  of  the  time,  the  Apple- 
tons,  was  much  more  satisfactory.  William  H.  Appleton, 
who  had  in  the  forties  succeeded  the  founder,  his  father 
Daniel,  became  the  first  president  of  the  Publishers' 
League  and  remained  president  until  his  death.  Mr. 
Appleton  took  an  active  part  in  helping  to  shape  the 
several  bills  that  were  presented  and  he  used  his  personal 
influence  also  in  connection  with  the  proposed  treaties. 

My  father,  as  usual,  accepted  the  lion's  share  of  the 
work.  He  acted  as  secretary  and  he  had  full  authority 
to  use  Mr.  Appleton's  name  in  connection  with  the  oper- 
ations carried  on.  The  last  piece  of  work  done  by  him  in 
the  interests  of  the  public  was  in  behalf  of  the  copyright 
bill  that  was  pending  in  1872.  Early  in  November  in  that 
year,  he  went  to  Washington  as  secretary  of  the  league 
and  at  the  request  or  with  the  instructions  (as  he  under- 
stood, arrived  at  unanimously)  of  the  members  of  the 
executive  committee,  he  was  to  present  before  the  joint 
committee  of  the  Representatives  and  the  Senate,  the 
contentions  of  the  league,  which  included  at  that  time 
the  authors  as  well  as  the  publishers.  Mr.  Bryant  was 
at  the  time  the  president  of  the  general  or  National  Copy- 
right Association.  My  father  spoke  in  the  committee 
room  in  behalf  of  the  pending  bill,  which  had,  as  he  re- 
ported, secured  the  general  approval  both  of  the  authors 
and  of  the  publishers.  He  was  not  a  little  disappointed  and 
mortified  to  be  confronted  in  the  committee  room  by  a 
New  York  lawyer  (who  happened  to  be  a  personal  acquaint- 
ance) who  stated  to  the  committee  that  he  was  there  to 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  369 

represent  Messrs.  Harper  Brothers  and  to  ask  in  their 
behalf  that  the  committee  would  not  take  favourable 
action  on  the  pending  bill.  He  claimed  that  the  bill  as 
framed  would  work  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  great 
literary  interests  of  the  American  community.  If  the 
Harpers  had  been  prepared,  as  were  certain  of  the  avowed 
pirates,  to  oppose  the  bill  openly,  their  action  would  have 
been  consistent  and  simple.  In  permitting,  however,  the 
representative  of  the  publishers'  committee  to  make  the 
statement  that  the  bill  represented  the  substantially 
unanimous  opinion  of  the  book  trade  as  well  as  of  the 
authors,  and  in  waiting  until  the  last  moment  to  put  in  the 
fatal  objection  after  my  father  and  others  had  devoted 
so  much  earnest  labour  to  the  work,  the  Harpers  played 
a  part  that  was  difficult  to  explain  or  to  defend.  The 
chairman  of  the  joint  committee,  old  Senator  Morrill  of 
Vermont,  after  listening  to  the  representative  of  the 
Harpers,  said  that  Mr.  Putnam  seemed  to  be  in  error 
in  his  understanding  that  those  who  were  interested  had 
arrived  at  a  concensus  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the  form  of  a 
copyright  measure. 

The  committee  is  not  prepared  [said  the  Senator]  to  take 
individual  action  in  regard  to  such  a  matter.  We  are  quite 
ready  to  accept  the  views  of  those  who  have  to  do  with  the 
production  and  the  distribution  of  literature.  When  you 
gentlemen  are  agreed  among  yourselves,  bring  in  your  bill  and 
this  committee  will  see  that  the  measure  is  properly  reported 
for  the  action  of  the  two  Houses. 

My  father  returned  from  Washington  not  only  dis- 
appointed at  this  adverse  result,  but  keenly  troubled  at 
the  manner  in  which  the  defeat  of  the  measure  had  been 
brought  about.  He  was  also  over-fatigued  as  well  with 
his  journey  and  with  the  excitement  of  his  task  as  in 
34 


37°  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

connection  with  certain  harassing  conditions  of  his  own 
business.  I  can  but  feel  as  if  this  disaster  to  the  cause 
of  copyright  to  which  he  had  given  so  many  years  of 
earnest  and  public-spirited  thought  and  labour,  was  a  large 
factor  in  undermining  his  vitality.  It  was  because  of  this 
lack  of  vital  force  that  a  fainting  fit,  which  with  a  stronger 
man  would  have  been  a  passing  difficulty,  caused  his  death 
in  December. 

In  coming  into  association  with  my  father  in  the  publish- 
ing business,  I  found  myself  at  once  interested  in  his 
ideas  in  regard  to  literary  property  and  inspired  by  his  ideal 
of  a  world-wide  republic  of  literature  which  should  be 
unhampered  by  political  divisions  or  restrictions.  During 
the  years  of  our  partnership,  from  1866  to  his  death  in 
1872, 1  had  the  opportunity  of  listening  to  much  of  the  talk 
that  went  on  in  the  office  on  the  part  of  those  who  were, 
like  my  father,  working  for  a  recognition  of  literary 
property  and  for  the  removal  of  the  stigma  which  had  been 
placed  upon  our  country  by  the  complaints  of  trans- 
atlantic authors  in  regard  to  the  piracies  of  the  Americans. 
Mr.  Bryant,  Francis  Lieber,  Edmund  C.  Stedman,  William 
C.  Prime,  and  others  who  had  for  years  taken  part  in  the 
work  on  behalf  of  international  copyright,  were  from  time 
to  time  visitors  at  66 1  Broadway,  and  I  had  been  per- 
mitted to  share  in  the  councils  of  these  older  leaders.  It 
was  natural,  therefore,  that  after  the  death  of  my  father 
I  should  have  kept  before  me  the  idea  of  taking  up  the 
fight  to  which  he  had  devoted  himself.  The  only  question 
was  as  to  the  time  when  any  fresh  efforts  could  be  made 
with  prospect  of  success. 

During  the  years  succeeding  1872,  several  bills  in  behalf 
of  international  copyright  were  introduced  into  the  House, 
but  only  one  of  these  ever  got  out  of  committee.  This 
bill,  the  ninth  in  the  series  of  the  international  copyright 
measures,  was  introduced  in  1884  by  Mr.  Dorsheimerof 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  371 

New  York.  It  was  approved  by  the  Copyright  League  and 
was  favourably  reported  to  the  House  from  the  Committee 
on  the  Judiciary.  It  reached  the  stage  of  being  dis- 
cussed in  the  House,  but  a  resolution  to  fix  a  day  for  its 
final  consideration  was  defeated.  In  1885,  Mr.  Lowell 
accepted  the  presidency  of  the  Copyright  League  and  Mr. 
Stedman  was  made  its  vice-president.  In  the  same  year, 
at  the  instance  of  the  League,  Senator  Hawley  of  Connec- 
ticut introduced  a  bill  substantially  identical  with  that 
of  Mr.  Dorsheimer.  It  provided  simply  for  the  extension 
to  foreign  authors  of  the  copyright  privileges  enjoyed 
by  citizens  or  residents  of  the  United  States.  It  was,  like 
most  of  its  predecessors,  buried  in  the  files  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  the  Judiciary.  In  1884  and  in  1885,  the  annual 
messages  of  Presidents  Arthur  and  Cleveland  contained 
earnest  recommendations  for  the  enactment  of  some 
measure  of  international  copyright.  In  January,  1886, 
the  twelfth  international  copyright  bill  was  brought  before 
the  Senate  by  Jonathan  Chace  of  Rhode  Island  and  was 
referred  to  the  Committee  on  Patents.  The  introduction 
of  the  Chace  bill  marked  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
long  struggle.  The  work  of  education  through  the  public 
press,  the  distribution  of  pamphlets,  and  the  presenta- 
tion of  "missionary"  addresses  were  at  last  bearing  fruit. 
By  1886,  the  question  was  no  longer  as  to  whether  there 
should  be  a  measure  of  international  copyright,  but  what 
form  the  law  should  take.  In  November,  1887,  the  Ameri- 
can Copyright  League  (which  was  composed  in  the  main 
of  the  authors  of  the  country)  instructed  its  executive 
committee  to  use  its  efforts  to  secure  the  passage  of  the 
Chace  bill.  Of  this  committee,  Edward  Eggleston  was 
chairman,  George  Walton  Green  secretary,  and  Robert 
Underwood  Johnson  treasurer.  In  the  same  month,  the 
organization  was  effected  of  the  American  Publishers' 
Copyright  League,  with  William  H.  Appleton  as  president, 


372  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

A.  C.  McClurg,  vice-president,  Charles  Scribner  as  treas- 
urer, and  myself  as  secretary.  The  meeting  of  the  pub- 
lishers at  which  this  organization  had  been  brought  about 
had  been  called  at  my  instance  and  I  was,  therefore,  now 
in  a  position  to  continue  the  work  that  had  been  initiated 
by  my  father  nearly  fifty  years  earlier.  The  executive 
committee  of  the  Publishers'  League  was  instructed  to 
co-operate  with  the  American  authors  in  securing  an 
international  copyright.  A  conference  committee  was, 
at  my  suggestion,  made  up  from  the  executive  committees 
of  the  two  leagues  and  every  subsequent  step  in  the  cam- 
paign, until  the  passage  of  the  bill  in  1891,  was  taken  by 
this  conference  committee.  I  acted  as  secretary  of  the 
conference  committee  until  November,  1889,  when,  on  the 
ground  of  a  breakdown  of  health,  I  was  ordered  to  spend 
a  winter  in  Colorado.  The  management  of  the  secretary's 
work  of  the  joint  committee  was  during  my  absence  in 
the  hands  of  Mr.  Robert  Underwood  Johnson.  The 
preparation  of  the  documents  and  the  direction  of  the 
correspondence  of  our  joint  committee  had  been  divided 
between  Mr.  Johnson  and  myself,  and  we  also  took  turns 
in  the  arduous  work  of  attending  in  Washington  the 
hearings  before  the  committees  of  the  House  and  in  the 
Senate.  Important  service  in  the  capital  was  rendered  by 
Edward  Eggleston,  who  devoted  many  weeks  to  bringing 
personal  influence  to  bear  upon  doubtful  Representatives 
and  stubborn  Senators.  President  Cleveland  took  a  keen 
interest  in  the  copyright  measure  and  was  not  a  little 
disappointed  that  it  did  not  become  law  in  time  to  be 
classed  with  the  things  accomplished  under  his  adminis- 
tration. Invaluable  service  to  the  cause  was  also  rendered 
by  the  graceful  personal  influence  of  Mrs.  Cleveland,  who 
was  cordially  and  intelligently  interested  in  the  purpose 
of  our  undertaking.  Copyright  leagues  were  organized 
in  Boston  and  in  Chicago  and  auxiliary  committees  took 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  373 

shape  in   St.   Louis,    Cincinnati,   Minneapolis,   Denver, 
Buffalo,  Colorado  Springs,  and  other  places. 

I  had  the  opportunity  during  my  winter  in  Colorado  of 
doing  a  little  "missionary"  work  for  the  cause.  I  had 
when  "drumming"  up  in  Washington  possible  supporters 
for  the  copyright  bill,  called  upon  Mr.  Townsend  who  was 
at  the  time  the  single  Representative  for  Colorado;  but 
I  had  found  him  not  very  much  interested  in  the  matter, 
and  as  far  as  he  was  interested,  he  was  opposed  to  the 
bill.  He  had  the  impression,  which  was  shared  by  not  a 
few  of  the  Representatives  of  the  South  and  South-West, 
that  the  "interests  of  his  constituents  demanded  cheap 
books"  and  that  any  payments  made  to  foreign  authors 
must,  of  necessity,  increase  the  cost  of  books  and  stand  in 
the  way  of  their  wide  distribution.  While  in  Colorado,  I 
had  the  opportunity  of  organizing  some  public  opinion  in 
support  of  our  measure.  I  got  up  meetings  in  Colorado 
Springs  and  Denver  and  had  petitions  circulated  in  other 
towns  that  I  could  not  reach  for  meetings.  The  governor  of 
the  State  was  a  Connecticut  man  and  a  Yale  graduate  and 
a  number  of  the  judges  and  lawyers  were  New  England- 
ers,  and  these  men  were  ready  to  understand  the  purpose 
and  character  of  bur  measure.  The  petitions  and  the 
reports  of  the  meetings  were  forwarded  to  Washington 
and,  of  necessity,  came  into  the  hands  of  the  single  repre- 
sentative of  the  State,  Mr.  Townsend.  I  took  pains  that 
my  name  should  in  no  way  be  connected  with  these  papers, 
and  Mr.  Townsend  must  have  been  not  a  little  puzzled 
to  know  what  it  was  that  had  stirred  up  his  constituents 
in  a  manner  so  contrary  to  his  own  expectations.  On  my 
way  back  to  New  York  from  Colorado  in  the  spring  of 
1890,  I  repeated  my  call  upon  Townsend.  He  thought 
that  I  had  just  come  from  New  York.  He  greeted  me  with 
some  effusion.  "Mr.  Putnam,"  he  said,  "I  have  a  very 
intelligent  constituency.  I  find  that  they  are  much 


374  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

interested  in  this  measure  of  copyright.  You  have  no  idea 
of  the  extent  of  this  interest.  Why,"  he  continued,  "I 
have  during  the  past  weeks  received  dozens  of  petitions 
and  reports  of  addresses  in  favour  of  international  copy- 
right. I  am  going  to  vote  for  your  bill."  I  naturally 
expressed  my  cordial  appreciation  both  of  the  intelligence 
of  the  great  State  of  Colorado  and  of  the  open-mindedness 
of  its  representative  who  was  prepared  to  be  influenced 
by  suggestions  coming  from  such  a  constituency. 

If  it  had  only  been  possible  to  carry  on  similar  mission- 
ary work  throughout  the  South  and  West,  we  might  have 
secured  a  like  change  of  heart  on  the  part  of  Representa- 
tives from  Arkansas,  Texas,  and  Florida.  The  Congress- 
men from  the  South  and  West  remained,  however,  with  a 
few  noteworthy  exceptions,  opposed  to  our  bill,  which  was 
finally  carried  by  the  votes  of  New  England,  the  Middle 
States,  and  the  North- West.  The  country  was  too  big  for 
personal  visits  on  the  part  of  members  of  a  small  committee 
which  had  no  groups  of  speakers  available  and  no  money 
for  travelling  expenses.  Something  was  accomplished, 
however,  towards  the  education  of  far-off  communities  by 
the  use  of  the  press.  We  sent  out  from  our  committee 
rooms  from  week  to  week  thousands  of  more  or  less 
cleverly  written  editorial  sermons,  paragraphs,  references 
to  literary  conditions  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
stories  turning  upon  the  value  of  copyright  for  literary 
production  and  upon  the  necessity,  for  the  higher  interests 
of  the  community,  of  removing  all  restrictions  upon  liter- 
ary production.  The  editors  of  a  number  of  newspapers, 
particularly  in  the  smaller  and  far-off  places  where  edito- 
rial and  literary  material  was  comparatively  scarce,  were 
not  unwilling  to  make  space  for  our  communications. 
Some  labour  was  saved  also  in  the  matter  of  the  type- 
setting of  this  material  by  arrangements  made  with  two 
pr  three  syndicates  which  at  that  time  controlled  what  is 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  375 

known  as  the  "patent  inside"  business.  Such  syndicates 
have  doubtless  largely  increased  in  later  years,  but  in 
1888,  there  were,  I  think,  but  three  of  any  importance, 
two  in  New  York  and  one  in  Chicago.  These  syndicates 
made  up  a  quarto  page  of  the  size  which  was  standard 
or  at  least  usual  with  the  county  town  papers.  This  page, 
containing  literary  material,  guaranteed  to  be  "interesting 
and  informing,"  was  put  into  the  form  of  a  stereotyped  or 
electrotyped  plate  and  this  plate  was  sent  by  express  to 
the  county  papers  which  had  subscribed  for  it.  The  cost 
of  such  a  plate  for  a  weekly  issue  averaged,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  $5.00.  It  was  intended  in  any  case  to  be  something 
less  than  the  amount  that  would  be  paid  by  the  news- 
paper for  putting  similar  material  into  type  irrespective 
of  any  price  paid  for  the  literary  material.  It  was  part 
of  the  agreement  that  the  syndicate  should  send  such  a 
plate  each  week  to  but  a  single  paper  in  any  one  county. 
I  arranged  with  the  editorial  managers  of  two  of  these 
syndicates  to  occupy  during  a  term  of  months,  for  alter- 
nate weeks,  one  column  in  the  "patent  inside"  that  was 
being  thus  distributed  to  thousands  of  county  papers.  I 
agreed  that  such  columns  should  contain  "interesting 
and  informing  matter."  I  secured  contributions  for  the 
column  from  Edward  Eggleston,  Richard  Watson  Gilder, 
Henry  Van  Dyke,  R.  R.  Bowker,  and  other  clever  writers 
who  were  working  in  the  cause  of  copyright.  The  material 
possessed,  of  course,  a  higher  literary  quality  than  was  as  a 
rule  to  be  found  in  the  literary  sketches  and  papers  pur- 
chased by  the  editors  of  the  "patent  insides";  and  the 
authors,  and  particularly  men  like  Eggleston  who  had  been 
in  direct  touch  with  the  Western  literary  taste,  were  on 
the  whole  clever  in  shaping  their  "sermons"  so  that  they 
should  not  be  skipped  by  the  readers  of  the  page.  These 
"patent  insides"  went  to  thousands  of  journals,  and  while 
the  Congressmen  from  the  districts  in  which  these  papers 


376  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

were  published  must  have  heard  of  the  "patent  inside" 
system,  they  could  not  get  over  the  impression  that  an 
article  printed  in  the  home  paper  must  represent,  to  some 
extent  at  least,  the  opinion  of  the  constituents.  I  heard 
Congressman  after  Congressman  refer  with  pride,  mingled 
with  a  little  surprise,  to  the  intelligent  service  that  was 
being  rendered  by  the  local  paper  in  his  district  to  the 
educational  work  of  the  copyright  cause. 

A  noteworthy  feature  in  the  authors'  share  of  the  cam- 
paign was  the  holding  of  "authors'  readings"  at  meetings 
called  for  the  purpose  in  New  York,  Washington,  Boston, 
Chicago,  and  elsewhere,  at  which  the  leading  authors  of 
the  country  read  selections  from  their  own  writings. 
Among  the  authors  who  co-operated  in  these  readings 
were  Lowell,  Curtis,  Eggleston,  Stedman,  Stoddard, 
Gilder,  Stockton,  Bunner,  Cable,  Page,  Hawthorne, 
' '  Mark  Twain, ' '  Riley ,  ' '  Uncle  Remus, ' '  and  others.  The 
readings  were  well  attended  and  served  as  an  effective 
advertisement  of  the  copyright  cause,  while  the  admission 
fees  helped  to  defray  some  of  the  "missionary"  expenses 
of  the  campaign. 

The  opponents  of  the  bill  included  the  representatives 
of  certain  publishing  concerns  which  believed  they  could 
look  for  larger  profits  from  the  appropriation  of  trans- 
atlantic literature  than  by  securing,  under  payment  to 
the  transatlantic  authors,  the  full  control  of  the  material 
for  the  American  market.  There  were  at  that  time  in 
course  of  publication  a  number  of  so-called  "libraries" 
in  which  were  presented  in  cheap  form,  at  prices  ranging 
from  twenty-five  cents  to  ten  cents,  the  noteworthy  Eng- 
lish fiction  of  the  day.  The  most  successful  of  these 
"libraries"  was  that  issued  by  the  two  Munro  brothers, 
Canadians  who  had  settled  in  New  York;  the  great  Dal- 
housie  apartment  house  was  built  from  the  profits  of  the 
appropriation  by  the  Munros  of  the  work  of  English 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  377 

authors.  Some  of  these  concerns  were  represented  openly 
by  counsel  in  Washington  who  neglected  no  opportunity 
for  opposing  or  at  least  for  delaying  our  measure.  There 
was,  unfortunately,  no  difficulty  in  finding  among  the 
Representatives  and  Senators  men  who  were  sufficiently 
confused  in  their  minds  to  be  prepared  to  believe  that 
those  who  were  talking  in  behalf  of  copyright  were  sup- 
porting "monopoly  against  the  great  interests  of  the 
common  people."  The  only  important  leader  from  the 
South  who  gave  help  on  our  side  (and  his  help  was  very 
valuable)  was  W.  C.  P.  Breckenridge,  an  eloquent  Repre- 
sentative from  Kentucky.  I  had  known  Breckenridge  in 
connection  with  our  work  in  the  Free-trade  League,  and  I 
found  him  very  ready  to  take  in  suggestions  in  regard  to 
the  international  copyright  matter  and  very  able  to 
utilize  the  material  placed  in  his  hands  for  eloquent  and 
forcible  speeches  in  the  House  and  in  the  committee  rooms. 
Breckenridge  would  have  been  a  great  leader  for  his  party 
if  his  character  had  been  on  a  par  with  his  abilities.  He 
was  some  years  later  compelled  to  retire  from  the  House 
on  the  ground  of  some  personal  scandal  and  he  died  in  his 
country  village  forgotten  and  a  failure. 

I  remember  learning  one  morning  by  a  wire  which 
reached  me  in  New  York  from  a  friend  of  the  cause  in 
Washington,  that  on  the  following  morning  a  hearing 
had  been  arranged  for  before  the  committee  of  the  House 
by  the  opponents  of  the  bill.  I  realized  the  importance  of 
having  someone  present  to  represent  the  supporters  of  the 
bill.  I  telegraphed  to  the  chairman  of  the  committee 
asking  that  a  portion  of  the  time  should  be  given  to  the 
representatives  of  our  group.  I  then  sent  word  to  Mr.  G., 
the  lawyer  who  was  acting  as  counsel  for  our  League,  that 
we  must  take  the  night  train  together  so  as  to  be  in  the 
committee  room  in  Washington  at  ten  o'clock.  G.  came 
at  once  to  the  office  in  a  state  of  protest.  "  I  understand,'* 


378  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

he  said,  "that  the  case  against  the  bill  is  to  be  presented 
by  some  well-known  lawyers,  Judge  Arnoux  and  his  part- 
ners from  New  York,  and  possibly  others.  I  cannot  do  jus- 
tice to  the  cause  or  to  my  own  professional  standing  if  I 
am  called  upon  to  answer  without  preparation  a  carefully 
prepared  legal  argument."  " But,"  I  replied,  "what  is  the 
alternative?  It  will  be  disadvantageous  and  might  prove 
disastrous  to  have  the  committee  brought  under  the  influ- 
ence of  arguments,  legal  and  other,  for  the  defeat  of  our 
bill  with  no  word  of  response  from  its  supporters.  You 
must  go  and  do  the  best  you  can."  Our  counsel  was  serv- 
ing under  an  annual  stipend  and  he  was,  in  fact,  subject 
to  instructions  from  myself  as  secretary.  "I  am  sorry," 
he  said,  "I  must  decline."  "Then  I  go  alone,"  I  replied, 
"  but  on  my  return,  I  shall  report  to  my  committee  that  in  a 
time  of  emergency  we  cannot  depend  upon  our  counsel." 
I  found  the  committee  room  filled  with  men  who  were 
opposed  to  international  copyright  and  these  witnesses 
were  using  as  their  spokesman  Judge  Arnoux,  a  well- 
known  lawyer  of  New  York,  and  his  young  partner,  Mr. 
Bovee.  The  chairman  of  the  committee  was  Culbertson, 
I  think,  of  Texas,  whom  I  knew  to  be  an  opponent  of  the 
bill.  Arnoux  had  frequently  come  into  print  with  argu- 
ments against  international  copyright  and  I  had  for  some 
time  been  trying  to  make  him  state  in  public  what  interests 
he  was  representing.  I  thought  I  now  had  an  opportunity 
of  bringing  him  to  book  on  this  point.  Before  the  formal 
arguments  began,  I  asked  permission  to  be  heard  for  a 
moment  on  a  point  of  order.  "It  seems,"  I  said  to  the 
chairman,  "that  your  honourable  body  is  sitting  here  in 
the  capacity  of  a  court.  You  are  listening  to  evidence 
and  to  arguments  for  the  purpose  of  making  up  a  judg- 
ment that  you  are  going  to  report  to  the  House.  If  this 
view  is  correct,  I  will  ask  '  your  honour '  to  follow  the  court 
procedure  and  to  secure  from  the  gentlemen  you  permit  to 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  379 

address  the '  court '  a  statement  as  to  the  clients  or  interests 
represented  by  them.  I  am  here,  'your  honour,'  as  the 
authorized  representative  of  the  Copyright  Leagues  of 
Authors  and  Publishers  by  which  this  bill  has  been 
framed.  I  claim  also  to  be  a  representative  of  the  great 
literary  interests  of  the  whole  country  and  I  am  speaking 
for  those  who  believe  that  the  international  honour  of  our 
country  is  at  stake  in  this  matter  of  the  appropriation  of 
the  work  of  transatlantic  producers.  If  'your  honour' 
agrees  with  my  contention,  I  suggest  that  you  should  ask 
the  learned  counsel  on  the  other  side  of  the  room  what 
interests  and  what  clients  are  represented  by  them." 
Mr.  Culbertson  was  not  displeased  to  be  placed  in  the 
position  of  a  judge  and  was  ready  to  accept  my  contention 
that  it  was  in  order  for  those  who  were  given  the  privilege 
of  the  "court "  to  state  for  whom  they  appeared.  Arnoux, 
however,  was  not  at  all  pleased  with  this  requirement.  He 
retired  into  the  corner  with  his  partner  and  after  a  little 
consideration  returned  and  reported  to  the  committee 
that  he  and  his  associate  were  there  to  defend  the  in- 
terests of  a  Philadelphia  client,  Mr.  I.  K.  I  suggested 
to  the  chairman  that  the  committee  was  not  being  dealt 
with  candidly  by  the  learned  counsel.  I  said  that  as  a 
publisher  I  had  knowledge  of  the  business  standing  of 
Mr.  K.  He  was  in  a  modest  way  of  business  (he  was, 
in  fact,  getting  a  living  largely  out  of  the  appropriation  of 
German  books)  and  his  entire  capital,  the  amount  of 
which  I  happened  to  know,  was  not  sufficient  to  pay  the 
kind  of  retainer  that  would  be  demanded  for  a  month's 
service  from  the  distinguished  lawyer  who  had  just 
spoken.  " There  must, "  I  contended,  "be  other  clients 
associated  with  Mr.  K.  to  secure  the  services  of  a 
great  leader  of  the  Bar  like  Judge  Arnoux."  The  Judge 
was  not  displeased  at  my  compliment  but  found  himself, 
nevertheless,  troubled  at  my  persistence.  The  chairman 


380  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

was  still,  fortunately,  prepared  to  agree  with  me,  being 
annoyed  on  his  part  at  the  idea  that  he  was  not  being 
treated  frankly.  Arnoux  held,  however,  to  his  report  of 
a  single  client,  K.,  with  the  result  that  the  chairman, 
opposed  as  he  was  to  our  bill  (which  he  afterwards  voted 
against) , was  ready  to  recommend  to  his  committee  that  the 
bill  should  be  reported  to  the  House.  Later  in  the  morning 
I  utilized  the  half -hour  allowed  me  with  which  to  reply  to 
the  hour  and  a  half  given  to  Arnoux  and  to  Bovee.  I  got 
along  fairly  well  without  the  service  of  our  timid  counsel, 
and  on  my  return  to  New  York,  the  committee  agreed 
with  me  in  the  conclusion  that  it  was  not  desirable  to 
retain  in  the  service  of  the  League  a  counsel  that  could  not 
act  in  an  emergency. 

In  addition  to  the  work  in  Washington  among  the  Con- 
gressmen and  others  of  possible  influence,  the  members  of 
our  publicity  committee  took  pains  to  keep  the  subject 
before  the  public  in  as  many  centres  as  could  be  reached. 
The  moral  obligations  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  to 
literary  workers  at  home  and  abroad,  and  the  importance 
for  the  development  of  American  literature  of  securing 
adequate  legal  recognition  and  protection  for  literary 
property,  were  made  the  subject  of  discussions  in  literary 
societies  throughout  the  country.  The  matter  was  also 
taken  up  in  a  number  of  denominational  conventions  at 
their  annual  dinners;  we  also  succeeded  in  interesting  the 
associations  of  ministers,  so  that  more  than  once  during 
the  years  of  our  campaign,  the  ethical  side  of  copyright  was 
emphasized  in  hundreds  of  sermons  throughout  the  coun- 
try. One  of  the  best  of  these  sermons  was  preached  to  his 
congregation  in  the  Brick  Church  in  New  York  by  Dr. 
Henry  Van  Dyke,  and  we  persuaded  him  to  repeat  it  later 
in  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Washington,  securing  for 
him,  by  individual  invitation,  a  number  of  hearers  from 
both  Houses  of  Congress,  I  divided  an  evening  with  Dr. 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  381 

Van  Dyke  at  an  annual  dinner  of  the  Congregational  Club 
of  New  York.  I  was  fairly  familiar  with  the  ethical  con- 
siderations in  behalf  of  copyright  that  he  had  presented  so 
eloquently  on  various  previous  occasions.  I  persuaded  the 
presiding  officer  at  the  dinner  to  permit  me  to  speak  first 
on  the  ground  that  the  proceedings  could  fitly  be  closed 
by  the  better  known  orator.  I  utilized  my  time  to  deliver 
Dr.  Van  Dyke's  sermon.  When  his  turn  came,  he  had,  as 
he  stated,  no  other  course  open  to  him  than  to  devote  his 
time  to  the  consideration  of  the  business  side  of  the  ques- 
tion, largely  appropriated,  as  he  frankly  admitted,  from 
arguments  and  statements  he  had  heard  from  Mr.  Putnam. 
The  education  of  public  opinion  is  a  slow  process,  but  by 
constant  hammering  something  can  be  accomplished  and 
after  years  of  effort,  we  found  that  the  public  throughout 
the  country  was  interested  in  the  subject  of  literary  prop- 
erty and  was  prepared  to  emphasize  with  its  representa- 
tives in  Congress  the  importance  of  national  action. 

There  were  various  disheartening  delays  in  the  com- 
mittees, and  after  the  bill  was  reported  to  the  two  Houses, 
it  seemed  for  a  time  at  least  as  if  there  would  be  no  possi- 
bility of  securing  for  it  a  final  vote.  The  calendar  was 
crowded  with  measures  in  which  the  interest  on  the  part  of 
Congressmen  was  much  keener  than  in  copyright.  With 
the  skilful  steering  in  the  Senate  on  the  part  of  Senator 
Platt  (of  Connecticut)  and  Senator  Lodge,  and  in  the 
House  by  Mr.  Simonds  of  New  Haven  and  Breckenridge 
of  Kentucky,  it  finally  proved  practicable,  in  the  very  last 
hour  of  the  last  day,  or  rather  night,  of  the  session  to  bring 
the  measure  to  a  vote.  Even  after  a  favourable  vote  in 
each  House,  its  success  was  by  no  means  assured.  Certain 
differences  had  arisen  between  the  two  Houses  and  the 
delay  required  for  the  conference  committee  added  seri- 
ously to  the  risk  of  defeat.  In  the  conference,  it  became 
necessary,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  the  two  Houses  into 


382  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

accord,  to  make  further  concessions  to  the  manufacturing 
interests.  The  legislation  of  the  United  States  in  regard 
to  copyright  has  differed  materially  from  that  of  other 
nations  in  respect  to  the  interests  that  the  American 
Congressmen  believe  to  be  entitled  to  consideration  in  the 
shaping  of  the  provisions  of  a  statute.  In  England,  France, 
or  Germany,  copyright  statutes  have  been  framed  by 
committees  of  experts  who  have  secured  information  from 
the  parties  who  in  their  judgment  were  entitled  to  be 
heard  on  such  a  subject :  namely,  from  the  authors,  artists, 
and  composers,  and  from  the  business  representatives  of 
these  three  classes,  together  with  copyright  lawyers  and  a 
few  publicists.  The  people  who  had  interests  connected 
with  the  manufacturing  of  books  or  of  music  or  with  the 
reproductions  of  works  of  art  were,  of  course,  interested 
in  any  measures  that  would  affect  the  proceeds  of  the 
business  of  selling  books,  music,  or  art  reproductions. 
The  lawmakers  of  Europe  had,  however,  taken  the  ground 
that  these  manufacturing  interests  were  properly  to  be 
considered  in  the  rooms  of  the  tariff  committees.  They 
would  not  accept  the  view  that  printers  or  paper-makers 
or  photographers  had  any  proper  concern  with  the  making 
of  copyright  law.  In  the  United  States  on  the  other  hand, 
after  protection  had  been  accepted  as  the  national  policy, 
that  is  to  say,  in  all  the  copyright  legislation  later  than 
1862,  the  Congressmen  had  not  only  called  into  their  coun- 
cils the  representatives  of  the  manufacturing  concerns,  but 
had  shown  themselves  more  ready  to  give  weight  to  their 
arguments  and  to  be  guided  by  their  contentions  than  they 
were  to  listen  to  authors,  artists,  or  composers. 

It  proved  practicable  in  1891  to  secure  acceptance  of 
international  copyright  only  by  accepting  the  contention 
of  the  manufacturing  interests  that  all  articles  securing 
American  copyright  must  be  produced  within  the  United 
States.  The  bill,  as  passed,  represented  a  decided  advance 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  383 

over  the  previous  barbarous  conditions  under  which  the 
literary  productions  of  Europeans  could  be,  and  had  been, 
appropriated  without  consideration.  The  new  statute 
still,  however,  left  the  United  States  outside  the  comity  of 
nations.  The  civilized  states  of  the  world,  with  the  single 
exception  of  the  United  States,  had  under  the  Convention 
of  Berne,  which  came  into  force  in  1886,  abrogated,  as  far 
as  literary  property  was  concerned,  all  international 
boundaries,  all  political  lines.  For  the  purposes  of  art  and 
of  literature,  Europe  became  after  1886  (with  the  excep- 
tion of  one  or  two  states  of  smaller  literary  importance) 
one  community. 

The  law  of  1891  marked,  however,  a  decided  advance 
on  the  part  of  the  United  States  towards  a  civilized 
conception  of  literary  property.  The  fact  that  it  was  in 
more  ways  than  one  inadequate  and  ineffective  and 
the  hope  that  it  should  prove  practicable  in  the  years 
to  come  to  secure  a  more  satisfactory  measure,  made  it 
desirable  to  continue  the  organization  of  the  Copyright 
League.  We  found  also  that  the  opponents  of  copyright 
were  by  no  means  ready  to  withdraw  their  opposition. 
During  the  years  since  1891,  persistent  attempts  have 
been  made  from  year  to  year  to  undermine  the  copyright 
relations  of  the  United  States  with  Europe  and  to  restore 
the  old  condition  under  which  piracy  was  possible  and 
more  or  less  profitable.  I  continued,  therefore,  to  act  as 
secretary  of  the  League  during  the  years  that  have  passed 
since  the  statute  of  1891  and  the  responsibilities  of  the 
position  have  made  an  increased  instead  of  a  decreased 
draft  on  my  time  and  attention.  I  have  been  called  upon 
to  act  as  the  representative  of  the  Copyright  League  and 
of  the  literary  interests  of  the  United  States  at  the  succes- 
sive conventions  that  have  been  held  of  the  International 
Publishers'  Association.  The  purpose  and  work  of  this 
association  are  described  in  a  later  chapter. 


384  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

The  provisions  of  the  law  of  1891,  while  more  or  less 
troublesome  in  connection  with  books  of  English  authors, 
which  constitute,  of  course,  by  far  the  most  important 
portion  of  the  literature  to  be  considered,  proved  to  be 
peculiarly  unsatisfactory  in  regard  to  books  originating 
abroad  in  language  other  than  English.  The  condition  of 
American  manufacture,  added  to  the  requirement  for 
simultaneous  publication,  made  it  almost  impossible  to 
secure  American  copyright  for  the  books  for  which  it  was 
necessary  to  produce  an  English  version  before  the  manu- 
facturing could  be  begun.  We  had  given  copyright  to 
Germany,  France,  and  Italy  in  form,  but  in  fact,  the 
authors  of  these  countries  could  secure  but  a  trifling 
possibility  of  advantage  from  their  American  market.  I 
felt  that  the  acknowledgment  made  to  me  by  the  govern-, 
ment  of  France  for  my  service  to  France  and  to  literature, 
in  the  graceful  form  of  a  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour^ 
had  been  secured  on  inadequate  grounds.  I  began,  there- 
fore, early  after  the  enactment  of  the  law,  working  to 
secure  an  amendment  which  should  meet  this  special 
difficulty  in  the  case  of  continental  books.  It  was  difficult, 
however,  to  interest  Congressmen  in  the  question  of  jus- 
tice for  continental  authors.  They  did  not  think  it  likely 
that  there  would  be  on  the  Continent,  as  they  admitted 
there  might  be  in  England,  any  offsetting  advantage  for 
American  authors.  It  took  years  to  secure  an  amendment 
which  permitted  an  interval  of  twelve  months  within 
which  an  American  edition  was  to  be  produced  of  a  work 
originating  abroad  in  a  language  other  than  English. 
During  this  twelve  months,  an  ad  interim  copyright  pro- 
tected the  work  in  the  original. 

In  1907,  conferences  were  instituted  to  secure  further 
consideration  for  the  matter  of  copyright  and  to  induce 
Congress  to  do  something  to  bring  the  American  statute 
into  more  consistent  and  workable  form.  After  two  years 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  385 

of  efforts  more  or  less  similar  in  character  to  those  which 
had  been  given  to  the  work  between  1886  and  1891,  we 
were  able  to  secure  the  enactment  of  the  law  which  went 
into  effect  in  July,  1909.  It  was  evident  during  the  con- 
ferences and  the  committee  hearings  that  preceded  this 
legislation  that  the  manufacturing  interests  were  able  to 
exert  a  still  larger  influence  over  the  opinions  and  the  de- 
cisions of  the  members  of  Congress  than  had  been  the  case 
eighteen  years  earlier,  and  in  the  committee  rooms  no  less 
than  twenty-three  organizations  were  represented  whose 
interests  were  concerned  with  one  division  or  another  of 
the  manufacturing  of  the  copyrighted  articles.  The 
chairmen  of  the  committees  gave  to  the  representatives 
of  these  interests  a  much  fuller  measure  of  time  and  con- 
sideration than  they  were  prepared  to  extend  to  the 
authors,  artists,  or  composers,  or  to  the  publishers  who 
acted  as  the  business  representatives  of  these  producers 
of  copyrighted  property. 

The  bill  as  finally  enacted  did  mark  in  certain  important 
respects  an  advance  over  the  preceding  statute  in  the 
theory  and  in  the  recognition  of  copyright.  The  term  of 
copyright  was  extended  and  the  remedies  for  infringement 
were  made  more  consistent  and  effective.  A  decided  ad- 
vantage was  secured  for  continental  authors  in  removing, 
as  far  as  their  books  were  concerned,  the  manufacturing 
restriction.  These  authors  were  thereafter  able  to  make 
copyright  entries  at  once  with  the  copies  of  the  original 
edition  and  secured  in  this  way  a  full  protection  for  the 
American  term.  In  certain  important  provisions,  however, 
the  law  made  a  step  backward.  The  manufacturing 
restrictions  on  English  books  were  extended  and  made 
more  strenuous.  The  provision  providing  for  the  exten- 
sion of  copyright  was  so  shaped  as  to  leave  subject  to 
cancellation  or  to  appropriation  without  consideration 
important  investments  made  by  the  publishers  in  copy- 
25 


386  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

righted  property.  A  publisher  who,  under  the  law  at  that 
time  in  force,  had  made  purchase  of  a  copyright,  and, 
with  the  understanding  that  even  after  his  control  of  the 
market  had  ceased  he  would  always  have  freedom  of 
action  in  such  market,  had  made  investments  in  electro- 
type plates  and  in  illustrations  and  in  securing  introduc- 
tions for  text-books,  found  himself,  under  the  new  law, 
exposed  to.  the  risk  of  having  the  value  of  this  property 
entirely  cancelled.  The  extended  term  of  copyright  could 
be  secured,  not  only  as  under  previous  legislation  by  the 
author,  his  widow,  or  his  children,  but  by  any  representa- 
tive or  assign  of  the  author.  The  publisher  who  had 
procured  the  original  copyright  was  not  even  permitted 
to  join  in  the  application  for  the  extension.  The  heir 
securing  control  of  the  copyright  for  the  extended  term 
was,  therefore,  placed  in  a  position  to  "hold  up"  the  pub- 
lisher for  a  "penalty  payment,"  with  the  alternative  that 
if  such  payment  be  not  made,  the  further  use  of  the 
publisher's  plates  would  be  prevented. 

I  argued  persistently  against  this  provision,  pointing 
out  the  serious  injustice  that  would  thus  be  brought  upon 
all  publishers  making  investments  in  copyrighted  prop- 
erty and  particularly  upon  publishers  having  to  do  with 
educational  works  in  which  the  cost  of  introduction  con- 
stituted the  largest  portion  of  the  investment.  The 
exaggerated  dread  of  "monopoly"  on  the  part  of  the  pub- 
lishers prevented  the  Congressmen  from  understanding 
the  real  nature  of  the  objection.  The  librarians,  with 
certain  purposes  of  their  own  for  which  they  wanted 
support,  joined  with  the  authors  in  supporting  the  provi- 
sion as  worded.  In  the  years  since  1909,  the  evil  effects  of 
the  provision  have  been  made  apparent  in  a  series  of 
"strikes"  undertaken  by  the  heirs  of  authors  upon  the 
property  interests  of  publishers  who  had  made  investments 
in  copyrighted  property. 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  387 

Another  provision  of  the  new  statute  which  is  absolutely 
contrary  to  the  principles  of  copyright,  and  to  the  practice 
of  copyright  law  in  all  other  countries,  is  that  which  leaves 
to  libraries,  incorporated  or  unincorporated,  and  to  in- 
dividuals who  certify  that  they  are  "importing  for  use  and 
not  for  sale,"  the  privilege  of  bringing  into  the  United 
States,  without  reference  to  the  restriction  of  American 
copyright,  foreign  editions  of  works  which  have  secured 
copyright.  The  American  publisher  who  purchases  the 
American  copyright  of  a  book,  or  who  purchases  simply 
the  publication  rights  for  such  book,  secures  for  his  ex- 
penditure not  the  control  of  the  American  market  such 
as  under  a  similar  purchase  is  given  to  the  transatlantic 
publisher,  but  simply  the  privilege  of  competing  in  that 
market  with  the  transatlantic  editions  of  the  same  book. 
In  one  provision,  the  statute  gives  (as  had  been  given  by 
all  earlier  statutes)  to  the  producer  of  the  copyrighted 
property  and  his  assign  the  full  control  or  "monopoly" 
during  the  term  specified.  In  a  later  provision,  it  leaves 
the  market  so  assigned  open  to  the  invasion  of  transatlan- 
tic editions  of  the  same  books  from  the  sales  of  which  the 
owner  of  the  American  copyright  derives  little  or  no  ad- 
vantage, while  the  property  of  both  author  and  publisher 
in  the  American  edition  is  seriously  undermined. 

It  was  doubtless  the  case  that  the  wave  of  public  and 
legislative  opinion  that  was  in  1907  beginning  to  take 
shape  in  the  country  against  combinations  and  trusts 
which  might,  through  the  control  of  monopolies,  work  to 
the  disadvantage  of  the  community,  materially  affected 
the  common-sense  and  justice  of  this  copyright  statute. 
It  will  probably  be  some  time  before  it  will  prove  possible 
to  make  clear  to  legislators  that  there  are  monopolies  and 
monopolies.  It  has  always  been  understood  that  certain 
disadvantages  must  accrue  to  the  community  in  leaving 
with  a  producer  for  a  term  of  years  the  absolute  control  of 


388  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

his  production ;  but  it  has  been  made  clear  in  all  the  history 
of  copyright  law  that  the  advantages  to  the  community 
in  encouraging  the  production  of  copyrighted  property 
far  outweigh  the  occasional  inconvenience  that  may  arise 
through  the  unwise  action  of  an  author,  artist,  or  composer. 
The  experience  of  the  world  must  be  accepted  as  a  factor 
in  the  shaping  of  copyright  law  as  in  all  legislation,  and 
sooner  or  later  even  an  American  Congress  will  be  able  to 
free  itself  from  the  parochial  or  district  method  of  law- 
making. 

I  came  into  relations  once  or  twice  with  the  conditions 
of  copyright  law  in  Great  Britain.  In  1879,  I  was  called 
as  an  expert  witness  before  a  royal  or  parliamentary  com- 
mission which  was  then  in  session  and  which  had  for  its 
purpose  the  framing  of  the  new  copyright  statute.  I  have 
somewhere  on  file  the  list  of  the  members  of  the  commis- 
sion. I  can  recall  at  the  moment  only  the  names  of  Mr. 
Goschen,  afterwards  Baron  Goschen,  and  Lord  John 
Manners,  later  the  Earl  of  Rutland.  Lord  John  Manners 
was  undoubtedly  a  conscientious  and  patriotic  statesman. 
I  have  the  impression,  however,  that  he  was  known  to 
his  generation  chiefly  by  certain  lines  attributed  to  him : 

Let  wealth  and  commerce,  laws  and  learning  die, 
But  leave  us  still  our  old  nobility. 

The  commission  of  1879  framed  a  bill  which,  if  enacted 
into  law,  would  certainly  have  constituted  a  decided  im- 
provement upon  the  statute  of  1842  at  that  time  in  force. 
This  bill,  constituted  as  a  result  of  the  very  important  and 
enormous  mass  of  testimony,  never  got  out  of  the  pigeon- 
hole of  the  parliamentary  committee  to  which  it  was,  I 
suppose,  referred.  Twenty  years  later,  a  bill  introduced 
into  the  House  of  Lords,  carrying  the  name  of  Lord 
Monkswell,  presented  with  a  few  changes  conclusions 
identical  with  those  of  the  report  of  this  commission. 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  389 

Baron  Monkswell  made  one  or  two  speeches  in  defence  of 
the  measure,  which  had  the  support  of  the  Authors* 
Society  and  of  the  publishers  and  authors  who  were  in- 
terested in  literary  property. 

During  the  succeeding  thirty  years,  the  successive  ad- 
ministrations included  men  who  had  literary  and  scien- 
tific interests  such  as  Gladstone,  Beaconsfield,  Salisbury, 
and  Balfour;  but  no  prime  minister  found  time,  in  the 
midst  of  the  political  contentions  of  his  day,  to  give  atten- 
tion to  the  unsatisfactory  condition  of  British  copyright 
law. 

It  was  not  until  1911  that  a  new  attempt  was  made, 
which  this  time  proved  successful,  to  secure  legislation  on 
the  subject.  The  bill  of  this  year,  for  the  management  of 
which  in  the  House  the  Postmaster-General,  Sydney 
Buxton,  was  chiefly  responsible  and  which  enlisted  in  its 
support  so  distinctive  an  author  as  Augustine  Birrell, 
went  into  force  in  July,  1912.  The  framers  have  succeeded 
in  getting  rid  of  many  of  the  incongruities  and  incon- 
sistencies of  the  earlier  statute  but  they  have,  in  my 
judgment,  still  failed  to  secure  for  the  British  Empire  a 
scientific  system  of  copyright.  Under  the  present  policy 
of  the  Empire,  the  so-called  independent  colonies,  whose 
copyright  systems  had  heretofore  been  subordinated  to  the 
imperial  authority  and  which  had,  therefore,  with  Great 
Britain  become  parties  to  the  Convention  of  Berne,  are 
now  to  be  left  free  to  institute  separate  copyright  terri- 
tories to  control  by  their  own  local  regulations.  Canada 
and  Australia  have  been  so  eager  to  take  advantage  in 
copyright  of  an  independence  which  they  had  already 
secured  in  so  many  other  departments  of  government, 
that  before  the  British  statute  had  become  law,  they  had 
already  placed  on  the  calendars  of  their  respective  legis- 
latures bills  instituting  a  local  copyright  system.  In  copy- 
right as  in  commercial  law,  the  two  great  independent 


390  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

colonies  have  followed  the  lines  of  protective  policy;  and 
Canada  has  followed  the  bad  precedent  of  the  United 
States  in  making  the  recognition  of  literary  property  de- 
pend upon  manufacturing  conditions.  Years  of  time  will 
evidently  still  be  required  to  place  the  literary  conditions 
of  the  world  outside  of  political  prejudices  and  local  com- 
mercial restrictions.  It  would  be  rather  absurd  if  the 
institution  of  the  Republic  of  Letters  must  wait  for  the 
federation  of  mankind. 

I  think  it  was  in  1894  that  I  was  called  to  Washington 
with  the  word  that  an  amendment  to  the  copyright  law 
was,  on  the  following  morning,  to  be  brought  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  House  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  of 
which  General  Draper,  who  was  later  our  Ambassador  to 
Rome,  was  chairman.  The  word  came,  as  often,  by  wire, 
and  I  had  no  time  to  secure  knowledge  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  amendment,  but  it  seemed  probable  from  the  wording 
of  the  message  that  the  changes  proposed  might  prove 
serious.  I  telegraphed  for  an  opportunity  of  being  heard, 
but  no  answer  had  arrived  before  I  left  New  York. 

On  entering  the  committee  room,  I  found  that  there  were 
on  one  side  of  the  room  eleven  witnesses  marshalled  by  a 
capable  lawyer  from  Boston,  who  were  interested  in  an 
amendment  which  in  form  at  least  provided  simply  for 
some  extension  of  the  privilege  of  appropriating  musical 
compositions.  The  committee  included  hardly  any  one 
who  had  been  concerned  in  the  copyright  arguments  of 
four  years  earlier,  and  there  appeared  to  be,  as  far  as  I 
could  gather  from  a  hasty  word  with  the  members  before 
the  committee  was  called  to  order,  very  little  knowledge 
of  the  subject  and  but  a  perfunctory  interest  in  the  pend- 
ing amendment.  General  Draper  had  had  a  distinguished 
record  in  the  army,  and  while  I  had  never  met  him,  I  had 
taken  pains  to  inform  myself  as  to  the  chief  events  of  his 
Civil  War  experiences.  My  Loyal  Legion  button  brought 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  391 

me  at  once  a  friendly  greeting  from  the  General,  who  was 
the  only  other  veteran  in  the  room. 

"Well,  Major,"  he  inquired,  "what  do  you  want?"  "I 
have  no  personal  axe  to  grind,  General.  I  am  here  simply 
to  prevent  you  gentlemen  from  undermining  the  copyright 
system  of  the  land."  "Are  we  doing  anything  as  serious 
as  that?"  asked  the  General.  I  then  went  over  with  him 
the  wording  of  the  amendment,  to  which  I  had  given  a 
brief  study,  and  pointed  out  that  it  would,  if  enacted, 
constitute  a  practical  abrogation  of  the  international  rela- 
tions that  had  after  so  much  labour  been  established  four 
years  earlier.  "Why,"  he  said,  "they  told  me  that  this 
change  had  for  its  purpose  simply  the  facilitating  of  the 
musical  business  of  the  United  States.  It  evidently  calls 
for  careful  consideration.  How  can  I  best  serve  you  in 
the  matter?"  "Well,  sir,"  I  said,  "I  should  like  to  get 
back  to  New  York  this  afternoon.  I  judge  that  the  argu- 
ments that  these  men  will  present  will  be  practically 
identical  with  those  with  which  we  had  to  contend  some 
years  back  when  we  were  attempting  to  establish  inter- 
national copyright.  If  the  chairman  does  not  consider  it 
out  of  order,  I  should  like  to  give  my  objections  as  soon 
as  the  committee  begins  its  session."  "Well,"  said  the 
General,  "  I  am  quite  ready  to  meet  such  a  request  coming 
from  a  fellow  veteran."  The  result  was  that  I  spoke  first, 
much  to  the  annoyance  of  the  counsel  from  Boston  and 
from  St.  Louis  who  were  looking  after  the  interests  of  the 
musical  pirates.  I  succeeded  in  making  clear  to  the  com- 
mittee that  the  amendment  had  to  do  not  with  a  mere 
detail  but  with  the  general  principles  of  copyright  and 
international  relations.  I  had  just  completed  my  twenty 
minutes'  talk  when  an  urgent  message  came  up  from  the 
House  to  the  effect  that  some  special  business  was  pending 
which  called  for  the  presence  on  the  floor  of  all  of  the 
members  of  the  committee.  "I  am  sorry,"  said  the 


392  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

General  to  the  group  of  witnesses  who  were  waiting  to  be 
heard.  "  There  is  some  really  important  business  going  on 
downstairs  and  we  shall  have  to  adjourn  this  committee 
until  tomorrow."  As  I  passed  out  of  the  room,  the  Gen- 
eral whispered  in  my  ear :  "  It's  all  right,  Major.  We  shall 
not  report  the  bill."  The  really  important  business  that 
was  going  on  downstairs  was  a  resolution  of  rebuke  to 
ex-Senator  Bayard,  who  was  at  that  time  Minister  at  St. 
James,  for  some  utterance  that  he  had  made  in  an  informal 
speech,  an  utterance  which,  if  I  remember  rightly,  consti- 
tuted a  reflection  on  the  protective  policy  of  the  United 
States.  The  rebuking  by  a  Republican  majority  of  a  Minis- 
ter who  represented  a  Democratic  administration  was 
naturally  important  business  as  compared  with  the  con- 
sideration of  the  international  copyright  relations  of  the 
United  States.  In  this  particular  instance,  however,  I 
could  not  feel  that  any  serious  "injury  had  resulted  to  the 
country  by  the  delay  on  the  part  of  the  committee  in 
passing  upon  the  measure  of  the  musical  pirates. 

The  responsibilities  of  the  Copyright  League  has  in- 
volved continued  labour  for  the  secretary  from  year  to  year 
since  the  reorganization  of  the  League  in  1886.  This  re- 
quirement for  work  on  the  part  of  the  secretary  did  not 
come  to  a  close  with  the  enactment  of  the  statute  of  1909, 
which  at  this  time  of  writing  (1915)  is  still  in  force.  There 
is  still  necessity  for  watchfulness  at  each  session  of  Con- 
gress against  attempts  on  the  part  of  special  interests, 
mainly  personal,  to  modify  the  statute  in  order  to  put 
them  in  a  position  to  appropriate  the  property  or  the 
results  of  the  labour  of  the  original  producers;  and  suc- 
cessive committees  (in  House  and  in  Senate)  charged 
with  the  work  of  taking  care  of  the  interests  of  art,  litera- 
ture, and  music,  have  shown  a  large  measure  of  ignorance 
in  regard  to  the  nature  of  copyright  or  the  conditions 
under  which  the  business  in  copyright  property  must  be 


The  Fight  for  Copyright  393 

carried  on.  In  this  matter  of  the  protection  of  literary 
property,  as  in  various  other  matters,  the  conditions  of 
which  are  not  very  different  in  the  United  States  from  those 
obtaining  in  the  other  civilized  states  of  the  world,  it  is 
a  legitimate  charge  against  American  political  leaders, 
men  who  have  the  responsibility  for  the  shaping  of 
legislation,  that  they  refuse  to  study  the  experience  of 
legislators  and  the  result  of  legislation  in  other  states. 
The  world,  and  particularly  the  American  world,  has 
never  secured  sufficient  advantage  from  the  centuries  of 
experience  which  lie  behind.  It  is,  however,  particularly 
in  the  United  States  that  the  Congressmen  and  the  Execu- 
tive are  subject  to  the  charge  of  undue  cockiness,  based 
upon  substantial  ignorance  of  the  matter  in  train.  It  is 
on  this  ground  that  the  law  of  1909,  like  that  of  1891,  is 
defective,  inconsistent,  and  inadequate.  It  fails  to  secure 
the  reasonable  protection  for  the  property  rights  of 
producers,  literary,  artistic,  and  musical,  which  is  given 
in  all  the  states  of  Europe  as  a  matter  of  routine  and  for 
the  interests  not  only  of  the  producers  but  of  the  whole 
community.  It  is  only  in  the  United  States  that  a  law 
does  not  seem  to  be  absurd  which,  while  giving  with  one 
hand  the  right  to  control  a  copyright  protection,  under- 
mines that  right  with  the  other.  The  present  statute,  for 
instance,  provides  in  its  earlier  sections  as  before  stated 
that  in  the  United  States,  as  elsewhere,  the  producer  of 
the  copyrighted  article  shall  have  the  full  control  for 
himself  and  through  his  business  representative  of  all 
property  rights  in  the  same;  while  later  sections  express 
the  hesitancy  of  the  lawmakers  in  confirming  what  they 
call  a  "monopoly"  in  the  thing  produced,  and  leave  this 
copyright  market  of  the  United  States  open  in  the  case  of 
books  to  the  invasion  of  editions  of  the  same  books  pro- 
duced on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  legislators 
are  unable  to  understand  that  anything  that  weakens  the 


394  The  Fight  for  Copyright 

title  to  a  literary  production  lessens  the  desirability  from  a 
business  point  of  view  of  making  investments  in  such 
productions  and  has  the  result  of  diminishing  the  number 
of  books  of  importance  for  the  community  produced  in 
American  editions. 

The  French  Government  was  good  enough  to  give  to 
me  after  the  enactment  of  the  international  copyright  law, 
in  recognition,  as  my  parchment  states,  "of  service  to 
France  and  to  literature,"  the  cross  of  the  Legion  d'hon- 
neur.  Very  much  the  larger  benefits  from  the  law  were, 
of  course,  to  accrue  to  the  authors  of  Great  Britain, 
whose  receipts  from  the  United  States  to  be  secured  under 
the  new  copyright  system  would  be  many  times  those  that 
would  come  to  those  of  all  the  authors  of  the  continent 
put  together.  The  English  Government  is,  however,  not 
ready  to  make  recognition  for  service  of  this  character, 
but  a  group  of  English  authors  who  recognized  that  hard 
work  had  been  done  and  that  direct  advantages  were 
coming  to  themselves  and  to  their  successors  were  good 
enough,  at  a  time  when  I  was  in  London,  to  put  into  shape 
a  testimonial  which  for  purposes  of  record  I  think  it  in 
order  to  include  in  this  chapter. 

THE  UNDERSIGNED,  AUTHORS  AND  OTHERS, 

taking  advantage  of  the  presence  in  England  of 

GEORGE  HAVEN  PUTNAM, 

desire  to  put  on  record  their  sense  of  his  long  and  disinterested 
efforts  and  of  those  of  his  Father,  the  late  G.  P.  Putnam,  to 
secure  an  International  Copyright  Act  in  the  United  States. 
The  connection  of  Mr.  Putnam  and  his  Father  with  the  Ameri- 
can movement  in  recognition  of  international  literary  rights 
extended  over  the  whole  fifty- three  years  between  the  historical 
report  of  Henry  Clay  and  the  passing  of  the  Act  in  1891. 


The  Fight  for  Copyright 


395 


Whilst  the  Undersigned  express  no  opinion  as  to  particular 
clauses  of  this  Act,  they  are  all  convinced  that  it  has  removed 
a  great  injustice,  promoted  the  interests  of  literature  both  in 
England  and  in  America,  and  tended  to  increase  the  mutual 
esteem  and  good  feeling  of  Englishmen  and  Americans. 

They  wish,  therefore,  to  convey  to  George  Haven  Putnam 
their  warm  appreciation  of  the  active  part  which,  with  the 
most  honourable  motives,  he  has  persistently  taken  in  this 
successful  movement. 


ALFRED  CHURCH 
STANLEY  LANE-POOLE 
LEWIS  SERGEANT 
J.  L.  STRACHAN-DAVIDSON 
ANDREW  LANG 
RICHARD  GARNETT 
THOMAS  HARDY 
ALICE  GARDNER 
THOS.  HODGKIN 
W.  WARDE  FOWLER 
EDMUND  GOSSE 
GEORGE  MEREDITH 
EVELYN  ABBOTT 
C.  R.  L.  FLETCHER 
C.  RAYMOND  BEAZLEY 
W.  CLARK  RUSSELL 
ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE 


OWEN  M.  EDWARDS 

LAURENCE  GOMME 

ADELINE  SERGEANT 

JAMES  BRYCE 

W.  R.  MORFILL 

WILLIAM  O'CONNOR  MORRIS 

T.  W.  RHYS-DAVIDS 

H.  R.  FOX-BOURNE 

WILLIAM  DOUGLAS  MORRISON 

GEORGE  RAWLINSON 

C.  W.  C.  OMAN 

ANTHONY  HOPE  HAWKINS 

EDWIN  ARNOLD 

HALL  CAINE 

MARY  A.  WARD 

P.  F.  WILLERT 

ARTHUR  L.  SMITH 


CHAPTER  XV 

THe  DooK-Trade  and  tHe  Pxablic 

The  Duty  on  Books.  At  the  time  the  Aldrich-Paine 
Act  of  1910  was  being  formulated,  I  came  into  corres- 
pondence with  Senator  Lodge,  one  of  the  chief  leaders  of 
the  Republican  party,  in  regard  to  the  matter  of  the  duty 
on  books.  I  had  heard  that  consideration  was  being  given 
by  the  tariff  managers  to  the  suggestion  of  putting  books 
on  the  free  list.  I  wrote  to  the  Senator  to  ascertain  what 
changes  if  any  were  being  made  that  would  affect  the 
interests  of  those  who  had  to  do  with  the  making  of  books. 
Lodge  replied  that  pressure  was  being  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  government  by  certain  of  the  higher  educational 
interests  (I  understood  from  this  that  he  had  received 
a  letter  from  President  Eliot  of  Harvard)  to  place  books 
on  the  free  list.  The  Senator  pointed  out  that  I,  as  an 
old-time  free-trader,  could  raise  no  logical  objection  to  a 
% measure  that  was  intended  to  "free  literature  and  higher 
education  from  unnecessary  burdens."  I  replied  promptly 
that  the  group  to  which  I  belonged  could,  of  course,  raise 
no  objection  to  such  action.  I  said  that  we  should  be 
delighted  to  see  the  burdens  of  unnecessary  customs  taxes 
off  of  books,  but,  I  added,  the  relief  should  be  secured 
not  only  for  imported  books,  constituting  but  five  per 
cent,  of  all  that  we  used  in  the  country,  but  for  the  much 
more  important  division,  the  ninety-five  per  cent,  covering 

396 


Predatory  Price  Cutting  397 

the  books  that  were  produced  in  the  United  States.  I 
said  further  that  in  writing  to  a  protectionist  who  was  also 
a  scholar,  I  assumed  that  his  recommendation  would  be 
for  a  consistent  reduction,  and  that  he  would  not  approve 
of  freeing  the  finished  article  from  the  tax,  while  the  con- 
stituent parts  of  the  article  were  still  subjected  to  a  heavy 
duty.  I  gave  him  a  list  of  the  thirteen  or  fourteen  articles 
which  were  required  for  the  production  of  books,  and  which 
bore  duties  ranging  from  ten  per  cent,  to  ninety  per  cent. 
I  said  that  publishers  generally  could  raise  no  objections 
to  the  freeing  of  books  if  at  the  same  time  these  articles 
might  be  freed.  A  week  or  more  later,  I  received  report 
from  the  Senator  that  after  further  consideration,  the 
Republican  leaders  had  decided  it  would  not  be  practicable 
to  remove  or  to  lessen  the  duty  on  books.  When  the 
Wilson-Underwood  tariff  was  under  discussion  in  1913,  I 
wrote  in  somewhat  similar  fashion  to  Mr.  Underwood,  the 
leader  of  the  House.  I  thought  it  very  probable  that  the 
Democratic  leaders  would  find  it  desirable  to  remove  or  to 
lessen  the  duty  on  books.  I  reminded  Mr.  Underwood 
that  the  duties  on  the  materials  ought  to  be  taken  off  or 
reduced  in  proportion,  and  I  gave  him  the  schedule  of  these 
duties.  He  replied  that  the  suggestion  seemed  to  him 
sound;  and  when  the  duty  on  books  was  reduced  in  the 
Underwood  Act  from  twenty-five  per  cent,  to  fifteen  per 
cent.,  the  duties  on  all  the  materials  going  into  books  were 
reduced  pro  rata. 

Predatory  Price  Cutting.  Under  existing  law  as  inter- 
preted by  the  highest  judicial  authority,  the  book  trade  is 
prohibited  from  maintaining  the  regulations  which,  as  has 
been  shown  by  the  experience  of  other  countries,  are 
essential  for  its  wholesome  existence  and  development. 
Authors  and  publishers  are  compelled  to  stand  by  while 
the  property  interest  in  their  productions  is  undermined, 
and  booksellers  must  accept  the  destruction  of  their  means 


398        The  Book-Trade  and  the  Public 

of  livelihood  in  order  that  the  buyers  of  dry-goods  may  be 
brought  into  a  "state  of  mind"  concerning  the  "cheap- 
ness" of  goods  that  have  no  standardized  prices  and  the 
precise  "value"  of  which  is  by  no  means  easy  to  determine. 

The  use  of  copyrighted  books  offered  at  cut  prices 
as  advertisements  for  other  articles  constitutes  a  fatal 
hindrance  to  the  development  and  even  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  business  of  the  production  and  distribution  of 
books.  When  legislators  and  voters  in  the  United  States 
come  to  understand,  what  has  for  centuries  been  accepted 
without  question  throughout  Europe,  that  intelligently 
managed  bookshops  are  essential  for  the  higher  education 
of  the  community,  we  shall  secure  the  enactment  of 
measures  giving  the  right  to  repress,  or  at  least  to  restrict, 
the  predatory  price-cutting  of  copyrighted  books.  The 
same  principle  and  the  same  requirements  apply,  of 
course,  to  all  patented  articles  and  to  all  articles  the  prices 
of  which  are  standardized  and  which  have  secured  an 
assured  good- will  value  in  connection  with  a  name  or  trade- 
mark. One  trade  shall  not  be  permitted  for  its  own  benefit 
to  exploit  and  destroy  the  good-will  value  that  has  been 
created  for  the  productions  of  another  trade. 

My  friend  Albert  Brockhaus,  President  of  the  Book- 
trade  Association  of  Germany,  when  I  had  explained  at  a 
meeting  of  the  International  Association  of  Publishers 
some  of  the  difficulties  under  which  the  book-trade  in  the 
United  States  was  carried  on,  asked  me,  "Why  should  your 
government  act  as  if  publishers  were  malefactors  and  as 
if  the  business  of  producing  copyrighted  books  was  an 
injury  to  the  community?"  I  had  made  reference  to  the 
refusal  of  Congress  to  permit  the  producers  of  copyrighted 
property  and  their  assigns  to  retain  the  control  of  their 
productions,  and  to  the  fact  that  this  refusal  was  in  large 
part  due  to  the  jealous  interference  of  the  librarians  of  the 
United  States,  a  group  which  in  other  countries  has  always 


International  Association  of  Publishers  399 

worked  in  cordial  co-operation  with  the  publishers.  I  had 
had  occasion  to  explain  also  the  refusal  to  the  book-trade 
of  the  right  to  maintain  regulations  for  the  management 
of  its  own  business,  regulations  which  in  other  civilized 
countries  had  been  found  of  essential  value  not  only  to  the 
book-trade  itself,  but  for  the  whole  community.  In  reply 
to  Brockhaus's  question,  I  could  only  take  the  ground  that 
under  the  teachings  of  leaders  like  Bryan,  a  large  part  of 
the  voters  of  the  West  and  the  South  had  gone  daft  over 
the  term  "monopoly."  Copyright  is  a  "monopoly," 
legally  constituted ;  some  manufacturers  have  abused  their 
opportunities  and  have  secured  from  the  communities  dis- 
proportionate proceeds;  therefore  the  producers  of  copy- 
righted books,  in  place  of  being  encouraged  to  go  on  with 
the  development  of  literature,  shall  be  compelled  to  carry 
on  their  operations  with  a  truncated  or  fragmentary 
copyright  control ;  while  their  business  representatives,  the 
publishers  and  the  booksellers,  shall  be  held  under  the  law 
as  conspirators  if  they  attempt  to  fix  the  prices  of  copy- 
righted productions. 

When  American  legislators  shall  be  able  to  get  away 
from  their  ignorant  and  local  standards,  and  shall  be  pre- 
pared to  utilize  the  experience  of  other  nations,  it  should 
prove  practicable  to  bring  about  for  the  United  States, 
as  has  been  brought  about  for  the  other  civilized  States  of 
the  world,  a  consistent  and  effective  copyright  statute 
which  will  carry  out  the  avowed  intention  of  the  law  of 
"encouraging  the  production  and  the  distribution  of 
literature." 

International  Association  of  Publishers.  Something 
more  than  twenty-five  years  back,  the  International 
Association  of  Publishers  was  organized.  It  had  for  its 
purpose  the  bringing  together  of  publishers  from  the 
different  states  of  the  world  in  conferences  in  which  con- 
sideration could  be  given  to  the  improvement  of  statutes 


400       The  Book-Trade  and  the  Public 

affecting  literary  property  and  the  harmonizing  of  the 
provisions  of  these  statutes,  and  to  questions  connected 
with  the  tariff  on  books  and  the  regulations  controlling 
the  sale  of  books,  with  the  view  of  lessening  as  far  as 
practicable  all  barriers  in  the  way  of  a  general  exchange  of 
literature  among  all  the  book-producing  and  book-con- 
suming communities  of  the  world.  The  first  convention  of 
the  Association  was  held  at  Paris  and  later  meetings,  at 
intervals  of  two,  or  three,  or  more  years,  were  held  in 
succession  at  London,  Brussels,  Leipsic,  Milan,  Madrid, 
The  Hague,  and  Buda-Pesth.  At  the  larger  number  of 
these  gatherings  I  was  the  representative  of  the  American 
book-trade  and  I  have  found  myself  interested,  on  more 
grounds  than  one,  in  coming  into  personal  associations 
with  the  representative  publishers  and  book  dealers  of 
Europe.  The  meetings  of  the  Association  were  attended 
not  only  by  representatives  of  the  producers  and  distribu- 
tors of  books,  music,  and  works  of  art,  but  by  authors, 
composers,  artists,  and  others  who  were  interested  in  our 
discussions  of  methods  of  securing  a  more  assured  and 
more  consistent  world-wide  copyright  protection  for 
property  in  literary,  musical,  and  art  productions.  The 
discussions  were  in  great  part  carried  on  in  French,  but  in 
the  case  of  any  delegate  not  being  able  to  talk  in  French, 
his  statement  was  made  in  his  own  tongue  (the  language 
of  origin  so  to  speak)  and  was  translated  paragraph  by 
paragraph  by  an  interpreter  appointed  for  the  purpose. 
The  standard  of  education  among  the  publishers  and  book- 
sellers of  Europe  is  high,  and  the  larger  number  of  them 
are  conversant  with  several  languages,  including  English. 
While  I  could  manage  a  business  statement  in  German, 
and  had  no  difficulty  in  understanding  the  statements 
made  by  my  German  and  my  French  associates,  I  found 
it  advisable,  in  order  to  secure  precision  of  expression,  to 
speak  in  English.  With  a  little  care  about  enunciation,  I 


International  Association  of  Publishers  401 

found  that  with  few  exceptions  the  members  of  the  con- 
vention had  no  difficulty  in  understanding  my  addresses. 
The  meetings  recalled  the  gatherings  held  at  the  time  of 
the  old  Frankfort  Book  Fairs  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries.  The  members  of  the  book-trade  who 
came  together  at  Frankfort  had  the  advantage,  however, 
in  arranging  for  the  exchange  of  their  productions,  that 
Europe  possessed  at  the  time  but  one  literary  language. 
A  book  printed  in  Paris  or  Amsterdam  in  Latin,  the 
current  literary  language  of  the  day,  was  available  for 
sale  in  any  book  market  in  Europe.  This  advantage  of  a 
world-wide  language  must  in  those  earlier  days  have  con- 
stituted a  large  offset  for  the  absence  of  copyright.  The 
Frankfort  publishers  complained  of  "piracies,"  but  the 
cost  of  reproducing  a  book  was  so  considerable  that 
the  dealer  who  had  made  the  investment  £or  the  editorial 
work  on  the  text  and  for  the  manufacturing  of  his  edition 
was  for  a  considerable  period  fairly  secure  of  his  market. 

The  American  representative  found  himself  at  a  dis- 
advantage in  these  conventions  because  the  United  States 
was  not  a  member  of  the  Convention  of  Berne,  and  had 
left  itself,  so  to  speak,  outside  of  the  comity  of  nations. 
Under  the  provisions  of  the  Berne  Convention,  books 
secure  copyright  in  the  territories  of  all  the  states  that 
are  parties  to  the  Convention  without  any  special  formali- 
ties or  requirements  for  copyright  entry  for  the  separate 
states.  Such  states  as  Tunis,  Liberia,  and  far-off  Japan 
had  found  it  worth  while  to  meet  the  regulations  of  the 
Convention ;  but  the  United  States,  in  connection  with  the 
requirement  in  the  American  statute  under  the  protective 
system  for  the  manufacturing  within  the  States  of  the 
editions  of  all  books  securing  American  copyright,  had  to 
be  left  as  an  outsider.  In  reply  to  the  inquiries  made  from 
year  to  year  as  to  whether  the  United  States  was  going  to 
accept  for  the  direction  of  its  book  business  the  same 

3d 


402        The  Book-Trade  and  the  Public 

principles  and  the  same  regulations  that  had  been  adopted 
by  the  rest  of  the  world,  I  could  only  repeat  that  the 
publishers,  authors,  and  booksellers  were  doing  all  that 
they  could  towards  the  education  of  American  legislators 
and  of  the  voters  back  of  the  legislators,  but  that  progress 
was,  of  necessity,  slow.  The  war  of  1914-15  has  sus- 
pended the  operations  of  the  International  Association  of 
Publishers,  and  it  is  difficult  to  look  forward  to  any  time 
in  the  near  future  when  its  members  may  be  able  to  over- 
come the  bitternesses  engendered  by  the  strife  and  may 
be  prepared  again  to  come  together  in  friendly  relations. 
The  attempt,  however,  to  place  the  regulations  controlling 
the  production  and  the  distribution  of  literature  on  a 
uniform  basis  throughout  the  civilized  world  was  worth 
making  and  must  again  prove  of  service  at  some  date  in 
the  future. 

At  the  second  meeting  of  the  Association,  held  in  London, 
I  was  called  upon  to  preside  at  a  dinner  given  in  Station- 
ers' Hall  at  which  were  present  in  addition  to  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  publishers  and  booksellers  a  number  of 
guests  from  literary  circles.  I  had  occasion  to  introduce 
to  an  English  audience  so  well-known  an  Englishman  as 
Mr.  Lecky,  and  I  could  only  apologize  for  the  apparent 
impertinence.  I  also  presented  to  the  gathering  the 
distinguished  editor  of  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes, 
Monsieur  Brunetiere,  who  also  was  not  a  stranger  in 
London.  He  gave  us  a  charming  address  in  French, 
making  frank  acknowledgment  of  his  ignorance  of  English. 
He  regretted  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  understand  what 
Monsieur  Putnam  had  been  saying  about  him,  but  only 
hoped  it  was  not  too  wicked.  After  the  dinner,  I  con- 
gratulated our  guest  on  the  beauty  of  his  French.  His 
enunciation  was  so  clear  that  those  of  us  whose  ears  were 
not  habituated  to  French  found  no  difficulty  in  taking  in 
the  purport  of  his  speech.  He  had  made  an  eloquent 


International  Association  of  Publishers  403 

appeal  for  a  world-wide  organization  for  literature  which 
would  know  no  political  boundaries  or  barriers.  He 
accepted  with  a  smile  my  compliment  on  his  French,  and 
said,  "Ah,  but  you  see,  Monsieur  Putnam,  they  taught 
me  how  in  New  York."  He  had  recently  returned  from 
the  States  where  he  had  been  giving  a  series  of  lectures,  and 
his  American  advisers  had  doubtless  cautioned  him  as  to 
the  importance  of  clear  enunciation  and  a  not  too  rapid 
delivery. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Some  Later  PxiblisKing  UndertaKing's 

IT  is  not  possible,  within  the  compass  of  this  volume, 
to  present  any  detailed  record  of  the  publishing  under- 
takings of  the  concern  during  the  half-century  since  1872 
• — nor  would  such  a  record  possess  sufficient  interest  for  the 
general  public.  I  will  mention  here  only  two  or  three 
publications  which,  on  one  ground  or  another,  seem  to 
have  some  distinctive  interest. 

International  Series.  During  this  period,  we  have  had 
in  course  of  publication  and  are,  in  fact,  still  continuing, 
certain  series  which,  apart  from  the  value  of  their  volumes 
for  students  or  for  readers,  possess  some  international 
importance.  It  had  been  the  theory  of  my  father  that 
publishing  undertakings  should  not  be  restricted  by 
political  boundaries.  Far  in  advance  of  the  establishment 
of  international  copyright,  he  had  schemes  in  train  for  the 
production  of  international  series  which,  under  the  super- 
vision of  a  general  editor  or  of  an  international  editorial 
committee,  the  members  of  which  would  work  with  har- 
mony of  purpose  and  of  policy,  should  secure  contribu- 
tions from  representatives  of  all  nationalities  who  were 
the  best  authorities  on  the  several  subjects  confided  to 
them.  He  pointed  out  that  when  the  cost  of  authorship 
and  of  illustrations  could  be  divided  between  several 
markets,  the  investment  in  the  undertaking  would  be  so 

404 


International  Series  405 

far  reduced  that  the  publisher  would  be  in  a  position  to 
place  the  book  in  the  hands  of  the  consumer  at  a  com- 
paratively moderate  cost. 

He  showed  further  that  in  so  far  as  one  language  was 
available  for  two  markets,  as,  for  instance,  English  for 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  French  for  France, 
Belgium,  Switzerland,  etc.,  there  could  also  be  an  impor- 
tant saving  of  cost  in  dividing  up  between  the  two  or  three 
markets  concerned  the  outlay  required  for  the  typesetting. 
Under  such  a  system,  the  authors  securing  world-wide 
circulation  would  receive,  as  they  would  be  entitled  to 
receive,  a  compensation  representative  of  the  extent  of  the 
service  rendered  by  them  to  great  circles  of  readers,  while 
the  student  or  reader  of  the  book  would  secure  at  a  very 
much  lower  price  than  would  have  been  possible  for  a  book 
the  entire  cost  of  which  had  been  debited  to  one  national 
market,  the  best  material  on  its  subject-matter,  with  the 
best  illustrations  that  were  available. 

In  connection  with  one  difficulty  or  another,  these  larger 
schemes  for  international  undertakings  have  never  been 
adequately  carried  out.  A  publication  of  this  character, 
the  International  Science  Series,  was  produced  by  the 
Appletons  under  the  initiative  of  that  able  scientist,  Dr. 
E.  L.  Youmans.  Later,  we  ourselves  brought  into  print, 
and  have  still  in  course  of  publication,  Putnam's  Science 
Series,  which,  in  like  manner,  secures  contributors  in 
whatever  country  the  best  men  may  be  found. 

The  Putnams  have  also  published  under  such  inter- 
national arrangements,  the  Story  of  the  Nations  Series, 
which  now  aggregates  nearly  one  hundred  volumes,  and 
the  Heroes  of  the  Nations,  with  something  over  seventy 
volumes.  Such  series  constitute,  however,  but  the  begin- 
nings of  a  system  of  international  publishing  which  must, 
I  am  confident,  attain  large  development  in  the  near 
future,  when  the  United  States  has  had  the  common  sense 


406   Some  Later  Publishing  Undertakings 

to  adopt  a  consistent  copyright  law  and  has  brought  to  a 
close  its  ignorant  and  absurd  interference  with  the  at- 
tempts of  the  publishers  and  booksellers  to  control  the 
regulations  of  the  book-trade  and  to  bring  into  publication, 
for  the  benefit  of  readers  and  students  throughout  the 
world,  the  best  material  that  can  be  produced  by  the  repre- 
sentative scholars  of  the  world. 

Apart  from  these  series,  which  belong  to  what  the 
booksellers  call  heavier  literature,  I  take  this  opportunity 
of  mentioning  two  of  the  most  popular  of  a  long  series  of 
novelists  whose  books  have  been  associated  with  the 
New  York  and  London  imprint  of  the  Putnams. 

Myrtle  Reed.  In  1899,  we  brought  into  print  a  volume 
entitled  Love  Letters  of  a  Musician,  the  first  of  a  series 
of  stories  by  Myrtle  Reed,  at  that  time  a  young  literary 
journalist  of  Chicago.  This  was  followed  from  year  to 
year,  for  a  series  of  twelve  years,  by  other  books,  many  of 
which  were  stronger  in  character  and  more  commanding  in 
interest.  Myrtle  Reed  succeeded  in  securing  an  increas- 
ing circle  of  readers  not  only  for  the  new  book  of  the  year, 
but  for  the  earlier  volumes.  I  know  of  no  author  on  the 
Putnam  list,  or  on  the  lists  of  other  houses,  whose  early 
books  continued  in  such  steady  and  increasing  demand. 
Myrtle  Reed's  stories  were  written  with  a  real  literary 
standard  and  with  great  evenness  of  literary  quality. 
She  never  scamped  her  work.  Her  characterization  was 
good  and  her  sense  of  humour  keen.  It  is  probable, 
however,  that  it  was  the  sentiment  in  the  books — a  whole- 
some sentiment  by  the  way,  not  to  be  confused  with  made- 
up  or  tawdry  sentimentality — that  made  the  largest 
appeal  to  her  great  circle  of  readers.  Lavender  and  Old 
Lace,  the  seventh  book  in  the  series,  was  the  most  success- 
ful, and  doubtless  deservedly  so,  but  the  volumes  reached 
in  all  some  millions  of  readers.  Myrtle  died  young,  not 
having  reached  her  thirty-eighth  year.  If  life  had  been 


International  Series  407 

spared  to  her,  she  ought,  with  her  conscientious  industry, 
her  grace  of  imagination  and  keen  sense  of  humour,  to 
have  produced  work  of  steadily  increasing  importance. 
The  last  two  years  of  her  life  had  been  clouded  by  in- 
validism  and  by  some  special  family  troubles,  but  up  to 
the  last  month  she  maintained  a  full  cheeriness,  and  her 
letters  to  her  publisher  gave  no  indication  that  the  final 
break-down  was  at  hand.  We  never  had  an  author,  and 
I  never  knew  of  an  author,  whose  relations  with  her  pub- 
lishers were  more  absolutely  satisfactory.  As  the  business 
continued  from  year  to  year,  the  friendly  relation  became 
closer.  She  got  into  the  habit  of  addressing  her  senior 
publisher  as  ' '  My  dear  Patron  Saint. ' '  She  amused  herself 
with  so  shaping  her  annual  novel  that  the  manuscript, 
in  readiness  for  the  printer,  should  be  placed  on  his  desk 
on  the  anniversary  of  his  birth.  During  the  last  three 
years  of  her  life,  she  took  pains  to  send  from  Chicago 
for  the  same  date  not  only  the  manuscript,  but  a  group  of 
American  beauties,  as  many  roses  as  there  were  years  in 
the  life  of  the  publisher.  He  was  no  longer  a  young 
man,  and  the  number  of  roses  was  so  considerable  that 
they  caused  the  publisher's  study  to  blossom  like  a  bower. 
It  was  Myrtle's  practice,  having  once  completed  her 
agreement,  to  leave  all  further  business  details  in  the  hands 
of  the  publishers.  It  was  her  belief  (in  which  she  showed 
her  wisdom)  that  the  publisher  was  in  a  better  position 
than  the  author  could  be  to  decide  in  regard  to  the  form  of 
presentation,  the  shaping  of  special  editions,  plans  for 
serializing,  etc.  It  was  her  routine  whenever  the  publisher 
had  submitted  a  recommendation,  to  say,  "If  you  think 
this  is  best,  it  must  be  the  right  thing  to  do."  She  realized 
that  the  interest  of  the  publisher  in  the  continuing  and 
developing  success  of  the  books  was  the  same  as  her  own, 
and  she  permitted  herself  to  waste  no  part  of  her  all- 
valuable  vital  creative  force  in  worrying  over  the  methods 


408   Some  Later  Publishing  Undertakings 

or  details  of  the  work  carried  on  by  her  business  agent. 
At  the  time  of  her  death,  she  was  receiving  from  her 
publishers  large  and  increasing  annual  payments,  the 
returns  coming,  as  said,  not  only  from  the  book  of  the 
season,  but  from  a  continued  sale  of  the  earlier  volumes. 
After  her  death,  her  mother,  herself  a  woman  of  literary 
attainments  and  scholarship,  was  able  to  make  up  two 
volumes  of  articles  that  had  been  contributed  by  Myrtle 
at  different' times  to  magazines,  and  the  control  of  which 
the  editors  of  the  magazines  were  courteous  enough  to 
transfer  to  Mrs.  Reed.  The  set  of  Myrtle's  works  is  now 
complete,  and  her  books  still  find  thousands  of  readers  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  and  in  far-off  Australia. 

Florence  L.  Barclay.  The  Putnams  were  also  fortunate 
in  securing  for  their  list  a  series  of  popular  novels  from  the 
pen  of  a  capable  English  writer,  Florence  L.  Barclay. 
Mrs.  Barclay  was  brought  into  the  office  in  1909  by  her 
sister  Mrs.  Ballington  Booth,  for  whom  we  had  already 
published  two  or  three  charming  and  successful  juveniles. 
The  Rosary  was  practically  the  author's  first  book, — it 
was  at  least  the  first  in  which  she  herself  felt  any  measure 
of  confidence.  It  made  its  way  slowly  during  the  first 
year,  but  increasingly  as  the  years  went  on,  until  it  had 
reached  a  great  many  thousand  readers.  It  came  to  be 
succeeded  by  other  books  which  gave  pleasure,  and  some- 
thing which  her  readers  described  as  more  important  than 
pleasure,  although  possibly  no  one  of  these  later  books 
possesses  quite  the  distinctive  character  and  originality  of 
The  Rosary.  The  Mistress  of  Shenstone  has  been 
considered  the  strongest  of  the  books  that  followed.  Mrs. 
Barclay  was  already  in  middle  life  when  she  discovered 
that  she  knew  how  to  appeal  to  the  interests  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  readers,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  her 
creative  power  should  not  continue  for  years  to  come.  At 
the  time  of  Myrtle  Reed's  death,  it  was  difficult  to  decide 


Norman  Angell  409 

between  the  relative  popularity  of  the  American  and  the 
English  author,  but  Mrs.  Barclay,  with  the  advantage  of 
continued  creative  vitality,  must  now  be  reaching  larger 
circles  of  readers  than  those  which  secured  satisfaction 
from  the  books  of  Myrtle  Reed.  Her  books  also  have 
secured  appreciation  largely  on  the  ground  of  their 
sentiment,  but  they  contain  a  larger  measure  of  religious 
purpose  than  had  found  place  in  Myrtle  Reed's  romances. 
Mrs.  Barclay  is  certainly  entitled  to  rank  with  the  most 
popular  authors  of  her  generation,  and  she  may  have  the 
satisfaction  of  feeling  that  her  popularity  has  been  secured 
for  books  that  are  sane,  sound,  and  wholesome  in  purpose 
and  in  character. 

Norman  Angell.  An  author  whose  work,  partly  on  the 
ground  of  the  originality  of  its  purpose  and  character, 
and  partly  because  it  happened  to  be  applicable  to  world's 
problems  that  had  become  strenuous,  came  into  relations 
with  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  in  1911.  I  refer  to  Ralph  Lane, 
better  known  under  his  pen  name  of  Norman  Angell, 
whose  Great  Illusion  was  published  in  1910  in  London  by 
Heinemann  and  in  New  York  by  the  Putnams.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  Great  Illusion  was  to  point  out  that  war  could 
in  no  way  be  made  profitable  even  to  the  victorious  party. 
Angell  did  not  undertake  to  tell  the  world  that  on  this 
ground  wars  would  become  impossible.  He  realized  that 
men  were  unreasonable  beings  and  that  in  the  future,  as 
in  the  past,  wars  will  be  waged  on  unreasonable  grounds, 
that  is  to  say,  for  a  purpose  which  can  bring  no  possible 
advantage  even  to  the  victor. 

The  work  has  had  a  deserved  influence  in  emphasizing 
for  students,  and  even  for  the  general  public  not  heretofore 
well  informed  in  regard  to  financial  matters,  the  increasing 
complexities  of  the  financial  relations  between  nations. 
Angell  points  out  in  one  famous  passage  in  his  Great 
Illusion  that  if  it  might  prove  possible  for  a  German  army 


410   Some  Later  Publishing  Undertakings 

to  make  successful  invasion  of  England  and,  in  capturing 
London,  to  close  the  business  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
every  German  banker  would  in  the  course  of  the  next  few 
weeks  be  brought  into  bankruptcy.  Angell's  book  has 
raised  the  same  kind  of  illuminating  controversy  that 
followed  the  publication  thirty  years  ago  of  George's 
Progress  and  Poverty.  It  will  undoubtedly  for  years  to 
come  form  the  text  for  discussion  and  the  suggestion  for  a 
more  intelligent  understanding  of  international  relations 
and  interests. 

James  M.  Beck.  The  year  1914,  which  marked  the 
beginning  of  the  European  war,  brought  into  publication 
a  great  mass  of  literature,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  which 
was  concerned  with  the  causes  of  the  war,  the  responsi- 
bilities for  the  war,  the  methods  and  management  of  war 
operations,  and  the  probable  nature  of  the  settlement. 
The  great  majority  of  these  books  were,  of  course,  ephemeral 
in  character,  and  while  adding  to  a  greater  or  less  extent 
to  the  information  of  the  man  in  the  street,  they  cannot  be 
expected  to  retain  existence  in  literature.  One  volume  in 
the  series  stands  out,  however,  head  and  shoulders  above 
the  other  books  brought  into  existence  as  a  result  of  war 
conditions.  Mr.  James  M.  Beck,  a  leader  of  the  New  York 
Bar,  brought  into  print  in  the  fall  of  1914,  in  the  New  York 
Times,  an  article  entitled  "The  Evidence  in  the  Case," 
which  was  a  study  of  the  events  that  had  brought  about 
the  war  and  of  the  relative  responsibility  of  the  different 
combatants.  Mr.  Beck's  article  showed  a  comprehensive 
grasp  of  the  subject-matter  and  presented  an  illuminating 
and  incisive  analysis  of  the  great  series  of  diplomatic 
papers  which  in  part  at  least  had  not  been  prepared  with 
the  intent  to  present  the  full  truth.  On  reading  the  article 
it  seemed  to  me  that,  as  well  for  the  information  of  the 
reading  public  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  as  on  ordinary 
business  grounds,  it  ought  to  be  developed  into  a  book. 


Anna  Fuller  411 

We  took  pains  to  come  into  prompt  relations  with  Mr. 
Beck,  and  the  result  was  the  production  of  a  book  issued 
under  the  same  general  title,  The  Evidence  in  the  Case, 
which,  in  whole  or  in  part,  has  been  reprinted  in  prac- 
tically all  of  the  European  languages  and  which  must 
have  had  a  very  large  influence  in  the  shaping  of  public 
opinion  throughout  the  world.  Mr.  Beck  sums  up,  as  if 
he  were  a  judge  in  the  court  of  last  resort,  the  respective 
responsibilities  of  the  combatants,  and  his  judgment  weighs 
heavily  against  Prussianized  Germany  and  its  ally  Austria. 
Long  after  this  war  has  passed,  Mr.  Beck's  scholarly 
treatise  will  remain  one  of  the  authoritative  documents 
that  has  made  a  place  for  itself  in  the  world's  literature. 

Anna  Fuller.  During  a  winter's  sojourn  in  Colorado 
Springs,  description  of  which  is  given  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
I  found  Ellen  Frothingham,  sister  of  my  friend  Octavius 
Frothingham,  in  residence  with  two  friends.  Miss 
Frothingham  had  inherited  the  literary  interests  and 
scholarly  ability  of  the  family.  Her  translation  of  Lessing's 
Nathan  the  Wise  had  been  accepted  as  the  best  of  the 
several  English  versions.  One  of  the  friends  who  was  with 
her  during  the  winter  in  question  was  Anna  Fuller,  a 
clever  young  New  Englander  who  was  beginning  to  make 
a  reputation  with  her  pen.  It  was  my  fortune  in  meeting 
Miss  Fuller  to  engage  for  the  Putnam  list  an  author  of 
distinction  and  also  to  begin  a  relation  of  friendship  the 
appreciation  of  the  value  of  which  has  increased  as  the 
years  have  rolled  on. 

Miss  Fuller  was  at  the  time  contributing  to  a  weekly 
paper  in  New  York  a  series  of  articles  called  Pratt  Por- 
traits. In  reading  one  or  two  of  these  papers,  I  became 
impressed  not  only  with  the  charm  of  the  literary  style 
and  the  distinctiveness  of  the  humour,  but  with  the  value 
for  the  social  history  of  the  time  of  the  studies  of  New 
England  character.  My  suggestion  that  the  papers  should 


412    Some  Later  Publishing  Undertakings 

be  republished  in  book  form  was  received  with  favour,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  my  firm  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  bringing  into  print  the  Pratt  Portraits.  The 
volume  secured  an  immediate  acceptance  from  the 
authoritative  critics  and  from  the  large  circle  of  readers 
who  have  always  been  ready  to  interest  themselves  in 
realistic  character  studies  of  New  England  life.  Some 
years  later,  we  published  a  second  series  of  Pratt  Portraits, 
in  which  the  record  of  the  careers  of  the  various  members 
of  the  Pratt  family  were  continued  through  a  later  genera- 
tion. The  Pratt  Portraits  was  followed  by  the  Literary 
Courtship,  the  Venetian  June,  and  other  volumes,  each 
characterized  by  the  same  delicacy  of  insight,  grace  of 
literary  form,  and  charming  humour.  Miss  Fuller  has 
made  a  place  for  herself  among  American  writers  of  dis- 
tinction and  has  created  characters  that  live  in  the  memory 
of  the  reader. 

Guglielmo  Ferrero.  In  1907, 1  had  the  opportunity  of 
meeting  in  London  an  Italian  historian  who  had  recently 
brought  to  a  successful  close  a  course  of  lectures  in  Paris 
on  the  History  of  Rome  during  the  period  of  the  first 
Caesars.  Guglielmo  Ferrero  was  a  native  of  Turin,  where 
his  literary  work  had  in  the  main  been  carried  on.  He  had 
been  called  upon,  however,  for  lectures  in  Rome  and  else- 
where, and  through  the  invitation  from  the  University  of 
Paris,  his  work  had  become  known  throughout  Europe. 
I  arranged  with  the  London  publisher  William  Heine- 
mann,  with  whom  we  were  from  time  to  time  dividing 
publishing  undertakings,  for  the  production  of  an  English 
version  of  Ferrero's  Roman  History  that  he  was  then 
bringing  to  completion,  and  this  history,  and  the  volumes 
that  succeeded,  have  secured  in  the  English  version  in- 
creasing circles  of  readers  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
Ferrero  has  come  under  criticism  from  certain  of  the  his- 
torical authorities.  His  historical  work,  while  based  upon 


Guglielmo  Ferrero  413 

assured  scholarship,  is  picturesque  and  dramatic  and  has 
some  of  the  same  qualities  for  holding  the  attention  of  the 
reader,  or  for  making  the  study  easy  for  the  student,  that 
are  found  in  the  volumes  of  Macaulay  and  of  Froude. 
A  historian  whose  work  has  literary  attractiveness  and 
dramatic  force  always  comes  into  question  with  the  class 
of  critics  who  are  disposed  to  take  the  ground  that  the 
authority  of  scholarship  is  weakened  if  the  results  are 
presented  in  such  manner  as  to  be  found  attractive  by  the 
reader.  Sometimes,  of  course,  there  is  ground  for  criticism. 
The  writer  who  has  imagination  and  power  of  expres- 
sion is  tempted  to  permit  himself  to  complete  historical 
narratives  for  which  authentic  material  may  be  lacking. 
Macaulay  and  Froude  have  both  come  under  criticism  on 
the  ground  of  inaccuracy,  or  of  imagining  so-called  "facts" 
by  means  of  which  to  support  preconceived  theories.  The 
criticism  of  Ferrero's  brilliant  history  is  somewhat  differ- 
ent. As  far  as  I  understand  the  matter,  it  is  not  claimed 
that  anything  that  he  has  written  is  contrary  to  the 
accepted  historical  facts.  He  is  charged,  however,  with 
yielding  to  the  temptation  of  making  his  pictures  complete 
and  artistic  by  filling  up  gaps  for  which  there  are  no 
authenticated  data.  There  can  be  no  question,  however, 
of  the  service  rendered  by  historians  who  make  their 
volumes  available  for  great  circles  of  readers.  The  popu- 
larization of  history,  provided,  as  said,  the  work  be  based 
upon  a  full  knowledge  of  the  period  to  be  considered  and 
of  the  material  available,  is  in  itself  a  gain  for  popular 
education  as  well  as  for  literature. 

The  historian  and  his  talented  wife,  a  daughter  of  the 
scientist  Lombroso,  were  my  guests  in  New  York  some 
years  later,  when  he  was  filling  a  series  of  engagements 
for  lectures.  They  went  from  my  home  to  the  White 
House,  President  Roosevelt  having  found  himself  keenly 
interested  in  Ferrero's  work. 


414    Some  Later  Publishing  Undertakings 

Some  Literary  Undertakings  of  my  Own.  As  the  fore- 
going chapters  have  indicated,  I  have  during  the  fifty 
years  since  the  war  found  my  days  fairly  full  of  interests 
and  occupations  of  one  kind  or  another.  I  have  been 
interested,  however,  in  bringing  into  print  the  results  of 
researches  in  certain  subjects  which  had  engaged  my 
attention.  In  1893, 1  published,  under  the  title  of  Authors 
and  Their  Public  in  Ancient  Times,  a  little  volume  which 
was  based  mainly  on  the  labours  of  some  learned  Germans, 
the  results  of  whose  work  had  been  presented  in  most 
unreadable  form.  I  was  interested  in  indicating  what 
facilities  the  authors  of  classical  days  possessed  for  the 
production  and  distribution  of  their  books,  and  for  coming 
into  relations  with  their  readers.  The  volume  was  frag- 
mentary enough  and  contained  at  best  but  second-hand 
scholarship,  but  it  was  at  the  time  I  believe  the  only  book 
in  English  which  had  gone  over  the  ground  at  all,  and  it 
may,  therefore,  possess  some  continued  value. 

Later,  after  the  International  Copyright  Bill  had  secured 
enactment,  I  was  interested  in  preparing  a  record  of  the 
long  contest,  if  only  for  the  purpose  of  recording  the  early 
efforts  of  my  father  and  associates  without  which  our 
later  work  would  have  been  very  much  more  difficult. 
In  1896,  I  added  a  study  of  Books  and  Their  Makers  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  I  had  secured  the  impression  that  the 
work  done  by  the  publishers,  first  in  securing  recognition 
for  literary  property,  and,  secondly,  for  furthering  higher 
education,  had  failed  to  receive  full  recognition.  The 
Books  and  Their  Makers  constitutes,  therefore,  a  record 
of  the  work  done  by  publishers,  first,  in  the  manuscript 
period,  secondly,  at  the  time  of  the  early  printers,  and 
later,  when,  at  the  instance  of  the  publishers,  the  first 
attempts  were  made  to  secure  a  property  recognition  for 
authorship.  In  investigating  the  history  of  publishing 
undertakings,  I  found  that  at  various  times  during  the 


Some  Literary  Undertakings  of  my  Own  415 

fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries,  the  heavy 
hand  of  the  Church  had  interfered  with  the  production  and 
the  distribution  of  literature.  I  decided  that  if  eyesight 
and  time  should  be  spared  to  me,  I  would  attempt  to 
trace  the  extent  of  this  interference  and  to  ascertain  how 
far  the  system  established  by  the  Church  for  the  censor- 
ship of  books,  with  its  two  sets  of  Indexes,  Prohibitory 
and  Expurgatory,  and  the  practice  occasionally  indulged 
in  in  Spain  and  elsewhere  of  burning  authors  and  pub- 
lishers, or  of  otherwise  hampering  their  operations,  had 
succeeded  in  checking  the  production  and  the  distribution 
of  books.  The  History  of  the  Censorship  of  the  Church, 
published  in  1907,  continues  to  be  the  only  work  in  English 
covering  the  ground  and  it  is,  therefore,  both  the  best  and 
the  worst  book  on  its  subject.  It  presents  a  record  of  the 
Indexes  from  that  of  Louvain  in  1546  to  that  of  Leo  XIII. 
in  1900.  There  seems  to  be  fair  probability  that  the 
Church  has  given  up  the  policy  of  publishing  general 
Indexes,  and  my  volumes  may  have  value  as  presenting 
in  convenient  form  for  reference  a  complete  list  of  the 
attempts  made  by  the  Church  to  check  by  a  system  of 
Indexes  the  reading  of  heretical  books.  In  these  volumes 
I  presented  the  conclusion  that  the  Church,  while  giving 
serious  annoyance  to  publishers  in  certain  communities, 
particularly  in  Spain,  had  been  able  to  render  very 
material  service  to  publishers  in  a  country  like  Holland, 
which  had  been  wise  enough  to  keep  itself  free  from  the 
censorship.  I  pointed  out  that  the  Holland  publishers 
had  used  the  Church  censors  as  their  literary  advisers 
and  had  followed  the  practice  of  bringing  promptly  into 
print  at  The  Hague  or  at  Amsterdam  the  books  that  had 
been  condemned  by  Madrid  or  Rome.  The  fact  that 
during  the  centuries  in  question  the  literary  language  of 
Europe  was  Latin  made  the  undertakings  of  these  pub- 
lishers of  course  very  much  simpler  to  carry  out. 


416   Some  Later  Publishing  Undertakings 

In  1909, 1  brought  into  print,  mainly  for  the  information 
of  my  nephews,  who  were,  I  found,  growing  up  in  shameful 
ignorance  of  the  main  events  of  the  Civil  War,  a  biographi- 
cal study  of  Lincoln,  which  included  an  account  of  the 
anti-slavery  contest  and  of  the  leadership  of  Lincoln  in 
the  great  struggle  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Republic. 
This  book  has  had  a  fair  demand  with  reading  circles 
and  in  certain  other  channels.  The  only  volume,  however, 
for  which  I  can  report  a  really  popular  success  is  a  reprint 
made  a  few  years  ago  of  a  frivolity  that  I  had  put  into 
shape  nearly  forty  years  back  under  the  title  of  The  Ginger- 
bread Man.  This  fantasy,  for  which  our  illustration 
department  secured  the  service  of  a  very  clever  artist,  has 
had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  the  interests  of  successive 
generations  of  youngsters,  and  it  is  possibly  by  this  little 
volume  that  I  shall  be  known  to  the  largest  circles  of 
readers. 


CHAPTER  XVH 
.Abram  S.  He-witt  and  OtHer  Friends 

Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  the  Mortar  Beds.  Sometime 
in  the  nineties,  I  had  the  privilege  of  being  a  guest  of 
Abram  S.  Hewitt  at  his  country  home  at  Greenwood  Lake, 
New  Jersey.  Mr.  Hewitt  had  been  an  old-time  friend  of 
my  father's,  and  I  had  known  him  since  boyhood,  but 
this  was  the  first  opportunity  I  had  had  of  being  with  him 
on  his  piazza  when  he  was,  for  the  moment  at  least,  free 
from  responsibilities,  political,  business,  or  social.  Mr. 
Hewitt  was  through  his  life  a  distinguished  and  distinctive 
citizen  who  rendered  a  full  measure  of  service  to  his  city 
and  to  the  whole  country.  He  was  reported  to  have  said 
once  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  his  irritable  temper  (he 
used  in  fact  a  stronger  term)  he  might  have  been  President 
of  the  United  States.  He  certainly  was  recognized  as  one 
of  the  two  or  three  ablest  men  in  the  leadership  of  the 
Democratic  party,  and  he  had  many  of  the  qualifications 
that  go  to  make  an  effective  President. 

As  I  walked  up  the  slope  to  the  piazza  of  his  unpre- 
tentious but  very  comfortable  home,  I  passed,  placed  on 
the  upper  slope  of  the  lawn  in  such  manner  that  it  over- 
looked the  valley  and  the  little  lake  below,  a  mortar.  The 
mortar  was  in  position  on  its  mortar  bed  as  if  ready  for 
action,  and  coiled  in  front  of  the  gun  was  a  section  of  an 
enormous  chain  rusted  with  age.  I  naturally  demanded  of 


4i 8    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

my  host  the  story  of  chain  and  mortar.  "Well,"  he  said, 
'  'Putnam,  you  have  some  family  interest  in  that  chain.  It 
was  forged  here  in  the  works  in  Ringwood  in  1776  or  there- 
abouts under  the  instructions  of  your  great-uncle  Israel. 
General  Putnam  had  the  idea  that  by  means  of  that  chain, 
stretched  across  from  West  Point  to  Constitution  Island, 
he  could  block  the  channel  and  the  river,  or  at  least  could 
so  delay  the  passage  up  the  river  of  the  Vulture  and  other 
British  sloops,  that  they  could  be  pounded  effectively  by 
the  batteries  from  the  point.  You  will  doubtless  remember, 
as  you  are  familiar  with  the  history,  that  the  chain  did 
not  prove  a  success.  It  was  weakened  by  the  pressure  of 
the  current  and  the  Vulture  and  her  associates  succeeded 
in  breaking  through  it  and  making  their  way  up  the  river. 
A  year  or  two  back,  I  learned  that  this  chain  was,  under 
the  instructions  of  the  commandant  of  West  Point,  to  be 
sold  at  auction  with  other  "  superfluous  material."  I  went 
up  to  the  Point  and,  for  no  very  great  sum,  purchased  the 
chain  and  then  had  an  interview  with  the  commandant. 
I  pointed  out  to  him  that  a  historic  relic  of  this  character 
ought  not  to  pass  out  of  the  possession  of  the  government. 
It  belonged  to  the  history  of  West  Point.  After  a  little 
consideration,  he  was  disposed  to  agree  with  me  and 
admitted  that  the  chain  had  been  included  hastily  with 
stuff  which  was  really  rubbish  and  which  they  had  to 
dispose  of.  The  matter  was  finally  adjusted  by  my  turn- 
ing over  to  the  Military  Academy  the  larger  portion  of  the 
chain,  but  I  reserved  the  right  in  my  transfer  of  retaining 
a  few  fathoms  as  an  adornment  for  my  lawn."  The  mortar 
and  the  mortar  bed,  he  said,  were  given  to  him  by  President 
Lincoln.  "Well,"  I  replied,  "you  cannot  end  the  story 
there.  You  have  got  to  tell  me  why  Lincoln  thought 
that  you  had  any  particular  claim  to  any  property  belong- 
ing to  the  ordnance  department  of  the  United  States." 
"For  the  mortar,  I  had  no  claim,"  said  Hewitt,  "that  was 


Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  the  Mortar  Beds   419 

a  gift  pure  and  simple ;  but  the  mortar  bed  had  been  made 
in  my  own  works  and  under  my  personal  directions,  and  in 
connection  with  the  mortar  bed,  Lincoln  took  the  ground 
that  the  country  was  under  some  obligations  to  me." 

The  making  of  the  mortar  beds  went  back  to  the  fall  of 
1 86 1  when  General  Grant  was  preparing  at  Cairo  the  expe- 
dition for  the  capture  of  Fort  Henry  and  Fort  Donelson. 
Grant  had  reported  to  the  President  that  the  earthworks 
of  the  two  forts  were  probably  too  strong  to  be  overcome 
by  any  field  artillery  that  he  had  available,  and  that 
this  was  certainly  the  case  with  the  works  protecting 
Donelson.  He  had,  therefore,  made  application  for  some 
mortars  which,  placed  on  schooners  in  the  river  below, 
could  be  utilized  to  throw  shells  into  the  works.  Lincoln 
had  in  due  course  referred  Grant's  requisition  to  the 
ordnance  department  and  had  received  report  from  the 
chief  of  ordnance  that  they  had  a  small  supply  of  mortars 
but  that  these  were  unavailable  because  there  were  in 
existence  no  mortar  beds,  or  at  least  but  one  single  bed. 
My  untechnical  readers  will  understand  that  a  mortar  or 
howitzer  is  a  short  heavy  piece  of  ordnance,  the  shot  from 
which  is  fired  at  an  angle  often  as  great  as  forty-five 
degrees.  The  recoil  from  a  gun  so  placed  is  very  consider- 
able. It  is  sufficient  to  shatter  a  masonry  or  earthwork 
foundation,  while  it  would  break  through  almost  any 
deck  on  which  it  was  placed,  and  if  the  vessel  was  of 
moderate  size,  as,  for  instance,  a  schooner,  it  could  easily  be 
sent  to  the  bottom.  The  mortar  bed  is  a  platform  made 
up  of  steel  and  woodwork  so  interlaced  as  to  give  with 
strength  great  elasticity.  The  recoil  of  the  gun  is  absorbed 
into  the  mortar  bed  which  serves  to  protect  the  foundation 
on  which  the  bed  itself  rests.  The  ordnance  department 
reported  to  Lincoln  that  it  would  take  two  to  three  months' 
time  to  make  thirty  mortar  beds.  Grant's  expedition  was 
nearly  in  readiness  and  any  such  delay  would  probably 


420    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

have  been  fatal  to  the  main  purpose  of  the  undertaking. 
Lincoln  had  carried  in  his  retentive  memory  the  name  of 
Abram  S.  Hewitt,  who  had  been  introduced  to  him,  as  the 
President  was  on  his  way  through  from  New  York,  with 
the  description,  "Here,  Mr.  President,  is  a  man  whom 
you  ought  to  know,  Abram  S.  Hewitt,  an  iron  merchant,  a 
man  who  does  things." 

The  thought  came  to  Lincoln's  mind  that  an  "iron 
merchant  who  was  capable  of  doing  things"  might  be  able 
to  meet  the  present  very  urgent  requirement.  He  sent  a 
telegram  to  Hewitt  asking  how  long  it  would  take  him  to 
make  thirty  mortar  beds?  The  message  reached  Hewitt 
on  Saturday  evening  at  the  house  of  a  friend  with  whom 
he  was  dining.  He  acknowledged  it  at  once,  promising 
to  send  a  specific  word  on  the  following  day,  Sunday.  He 
then  left  his  dinner  party  and  routed  out  the  United  States 
ordnance  chief  at  the  headquarters,  which  was  probably 
then  in  Greene  Street.  Showing  the  Colonel  the  Presi- 
dent's telegram,  he  made  requirement  that  the  sample 
mortar  bed,  which  was,  as  he  learned,  stored  at  Spring- 
field, Massachusetts,  should  be  sent  down  by  special  train 
to  reach  the  New  London  boat  so  that  it  could  be  delivered 
in  New  York  Sunday  morning.  The  Colonel  appreciated 
the  urgency  of  the  matter;  the  order  was  given,  and  the 
boat  was  held  until  the  train  reached  New  London. 
Hewitt  was  at  the  wharf  with  his  manager  and  his  drays  at 
an  early  hour  Sunday  morning,  and  the  mortar  bed  was 
carted  over  to  the  works.  Hewitt  had  never  seen  a  mortar 
bed  and  until  the  arrival  of  the  President's  telegram  had, 
as  he  told  me,  not  even  known  that  such  a  thing  belonged 
to  the  equipment  of  the  ordnance  department.  By  noon 
on  the  Sunday,  Hewitt  was  able,  however,  to  wire  to  the 
President  that  he  would  make  thirty  mortar  beds  in 
thirty  days,  and  promptly  by  wire  came  the  word 
from  the  President,  "go  ahead."  The  best  force  of  the 


Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  the  Mortar  Beds  421 

establishment  was  concentrated  upon  the  job  and  Hewitt 
and  his  two  foremen  were  supervising  the  operations  day 
and  night.  Hewitt  told  me  that  it  did  not  seem  to  him  to 
be  equitable  to  make  any  profit  out  of  the  government  on 
an  emergency  order.  He  charged  up  simply  the  cost  of 
the  material  and  the  cost  of  the  labourers  paid  by  the  day, 
and  he  threw  in  his  own  service  and  that  of  the  two  fore- 
men. The  bill  was,  therefore,  what  in  manufacturing 
•  circles  is  called  "flat,"  that  is  to  say  it  carried  no  profit. 
In  this  case  there  was  not  only  no  profit,  but  the  actual 
loss  of  the  value  of  the  time  of  skilled  managers. 

Fortunately  for  the  country,  Thomas  Scott  had  been 
willing  to  resign  a  large  salary  as  President  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  and  to  accept  for  a  compensation  of  six  or 
eight  thousand  dollars  a  year  the  post  of  supervisor  of  mili- 
tary transportation.  That  post  was  well  filled  from  the 
outset  and  rendered  first-class  service  during  all  the  years 
of  the  war.  Scott  had  had  early  advice  that  these  military 
beds  were  in  preparation  and  on  the  twenty-eighth  day, 
when  Hewitt  reported  to  Washington  that  the  thirty  beds 
were  in  readiness,  Scott  had  thirty  flat  cars  prepared  for 
the  purpose,  backed  up  into  Hewitt's  yards  on  the  Hudson 
River.  Each  car  was  painted  black  and  carried  in  white 
letters  the  address  and  caution: 

U.  S.  Grant,  Cairo.     Not  to  be  switched  under  penalty 

of  death. 

"That  train, "  said  Hewitt,  "got  through  without  delay 
as  Scott  intended  it  should,  and  as  there  had  been  delays 
with  other  portions  of  the  equipment,  it  reached  Cairo 
not  so  very  late."  The  Rebels  decided  to  evacuate  Fort 
Henry  with  a  "mere  show  of  a  fight,"  but  as  Grant  had 
anticipated,  Fort  Donelson  presented  a  more  troublesome 
problem.  General  Floyd  and  General  Buckner  had  within 


422    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

the  works  thirty  thousand  men,  very  nearly  the  same  force 
that  Grant  had  available  outside.  The  month  was  Janu- 
ary, and  the  weather  was  bitter.  It  was  difficult  to  break 
the  ground  for  field  entrenchments  and  the  cold  was  a 
serious  hindrance  to  the  sleeping  of  the  troops  in  the  open. 
As  Grant  had  feared,  the  light  field  guns  that  he  had  avail- 
able were  ineffective  against  the  earthworks  and  two 
assaults  of  the  infantry  had  been  repulsed.  Then  there 
came  up  the  river  three  vessels  of  the  schooner  fleet,  and 
when  the  first  shell  thrown  from  the  deck  of  the  advance 
schooner  had  dropped  into  the  inner  circle  of  the  works, 
General  Buckner,  a  trained  and  skilled  soldier,  reported 
to  his  civilian  commander,  General  Floyd,  that  the  place 
was  untenable  and  would  have  to  be  evacuated.  Grant's 
army  was  not  strong  enough  to  hem  in  the  works  entirely, 
and  while  no  large  force  could  get  out,  it  was,  it  seems, 
not  possible  to  prevent  the  escape  of  individual  stragglers. 
General  Floyd,  who  had  been  Secretary  of  War  in  Buchan- 
an's Cabinet,  and  whose  accounts  had  come  into  very 
serious  question,  said  in  substance  to  Buckner:  "My 
relations  with  the  Yankees  are  somewhat  peculiar,  and  I 
think  I  had  better  get  out  now  and  leave  you  to  surrender 
the  fort."  Get  out  he  did  with  a  few  other  "stragglers," 
and  perhaps  it  was  as  well  that  he  did  not  remain  to  be 
taken  a  prisoner.  Irrespective  of  the  charge  of  treason 
(and  he  had  while  Secretary  of  War  taken  pains  to  empty 
the  Northern  arsenals  and  to  give  counsel  and  aid  to  the 
troops  that  were  being  equipped  in  the  South),  he  would 
have  been  subject  to  trial  for  misappropriation  of  funds. 
After  some  little  parley,  Buckner  accepted  the  "un- 
conditional surrender"  terms  of  his  old  West  Point  chum, 
General  Grant,  and  Grant's  initials  thereafter  were 
confirmed  as  "U.  S. "  which  the  boys  in  the  ranks  inter- 
preted either  as  "Uncle  Sam"  or  as  "Unconditional 
Surrender,"  as  they  happened  to  remember  their  history. 


Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  the  Mortar  Beds   423 

Hewitt's  energy  and  skill  in  getting  the  mortar  beds 
into  readiness  had  helped  to  bring  to  the  North  its  first 
decisive  victory. 

"Twelve  months  later,"  said  Hewitt,  "I  was  in  Wash- 
ington and  bearing  in  mind  that  the  President,  in  his  letter 
of  appreciation  about  the  work  done  by  the  mortars,  had 
asked  me  not  to  fail  to  see  him,  I  called  at  the  White 
House."  It  was  already  late  in  the  morning,  and  the  aid 
in  charge,  pointing  to  the  full  room,  said,  "  Mr.  Hewitt,  we 
ought  not  to  detain  you,  the  President  has  got  to  go  shortly 
to  a  Cabinet  meeting  and  there  are  a  number  of  people 
here  who  have  been  waiting  for  some  time. ' '  ' '  Well, ' '  said 
Hewitt,  "  just  take  in  my  card  so  that  the  President  can 
know  that  I  have  been  here  to  pay  my  respects  and  I  will 
not  remain."  The  card  went  in  and  just  as  Hewitt  was 
going  to  the  exit  of  the  reception  room,  the  door  of  the 
President's  office  was  thrown  open  and  Mr.  Lincoln  came 
forward  holding  out  both  hands.  "Where  is  Mr.  Hewitt? 
I  must  see  Mr.  Hewitt,  the  man  who  does  things."  Hewitt 
was  dragged  into  the  office  and  Lincoln  insisted,  irrespect- 
ive of  waiting  petitioners  or  Cabinet  meetings,  in  having  a 
personal  talk  with  him.  The  President  finally  asked,  "I 
suppose  you  have  some  business  in  Washington,  Mr. 
Hewitt;  what  can  I  do  to  facilitate  it?"  "Well,  Mr. 
President,"  said  Hewitt,  "I  have  some  business:  I  came 
to  get  my  money  for  those  mortar  beds."  "What, "  said 
the  President,  "you  have  not  been  paid  for  that  work! 
You,  a  man  who  has  rendered  such  exceptional  service  to 
the  country!  It  is  disgraceful!"  The  bell  was  rung  and 
the  first  aid  within  reach  was  sent  to  call  Mr.  Stanton,  the 
Secretary  of  War.  "How  is  it,  Mr.  Secretary,"  said 
Lincoln,  as  Stanton  came  in,  "that  this  bill  of  Mr.  Hewitt 
for  work  completed  twelve  months  back  has  failed  to 
receive  attention?  A  great  service  has  been  rendered  and 
the  country  ought  not  to  permit  itself  to  remain  the  debtor 


424    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

in  money  of  the  man  who  came  to  its  aid."  "Well,  you 
see,  Mr.  President,"  said  the  Secretary,  "there  was  some- 
thing irregular  in  the  form  in  which  the  order  for  these 
mortar  beds  was  given  and  the  ordnance  department 
has  not  seen  its  way  clear  to  pass  through  the  bill  for 
payment."  Lincoln  thought  a  moment,  and  then  said: 
"Do  you  suppose,  Mr.  Stanton,  that  if  I  wrote  at  the 
bottom  of  the  bill, '  Pay  this  bill  now,1  the  treasury  depart- 
ment would  be  ready  to  give  Mr.  Hewitt  his  money?" 
Stanton  shrugged  his  shoulders  as  if  to  say  there  was  no 
knowing  what  irregular  proceedings  the  treasury  depart- 
ment might  be  willing  to  sanction;  but  the  bill  was  sent 
for  and  in  the  presence  of  Hewitt  and  Stanton,  the  Presi- 
dent wrote  beneath  it,  "Pay  this  bill  now.  A.  Lincoln." 
"Now,  Mr.  Stanton, "  said  Lincoln,  "  Mr.  Hewitt  has  been 
badly  treated  and  we  must  do  what  we  can  to  make 
amends.  I  want  you  to  take  a  little  special  pains  in  the 
matter.  I  want  you  to  go  over  with  him  to  the  treasury 
department  and  with  this  bill  in  your  hands  to  see  if  the 
draft  on  the  New  York  subtreasury  cannot  be  secured 
so  that  Mr.  Hewitt  can  get  back  to  New  York  tonight." 

"Stanton,"  said  Hewitt,  "gave  some  kind  of  a  growl 
which  the  President  interpreted  as  an  assent, ' '  and  marched 
off,  in  rather  a  bad  temper,  with  Hewitt  as  his  companion. 
The  bill  was  taken  by  the  two  to  the  treasury  department 
and  went  through  the  long  series  of  desks  to  be  vised  first 
by  one  auditing  or  recording  clerk  and  then  by  another 
until  it  reached  the  warrant  desk  where  the  draft  on  the 
New  York  subtreasury  was  drawn.  Mr.  Hewitt  said,  "As 
I  pocketed  that  draft  (the  amount  was  for  thirty  thousand 
dollars)  I  wished  that  it  might  be  possible  for  me  to  give 
back  a  portion,  a  thousand  dollars  or  more,  if  by  so  doing 
I  could  get  possession  of  that  voucher  with  Mr.  Lincoln's 
subscription, '  Pay  this  bill  now.  A.  Lincoln.' 

"When  the  war  was  nearly  at  a  close  and  there  was  no 


Paris,  1867-1870  425 

more  requirement  for  the  use  of  mortars  or  of  mortar  beds, 
I  wrote  to  the  President  asking  if  I  might  be  permitted  to 
purchase  a  mortar  with  its  bed  as  a  remembrance  of  work 
done  by  me  for  the  ordnance  department.  A  week  or  two 
later,  I  had  advice  from  the  White  House  that  the  mortar 
and  its  accompanying  bed  were  on  their  way  to  me  and 
that  they  were  to  be  accepted  as  a  gift  from  the  United 
States  in  recognition  of  service  rendered.  How  the  ac- 
counts of  the  treasury  department  for  these  particular 
items  were  ever  adjusted,"  said  Hewitt,  "I  do  not  know. 
Mr.  Lincoln  must  at  times  have  been  something  of  an 
enfant  terrible  to  the  trained  army  men  who  followed  the 
routine,  and  who  knew  the  value,  of  red  tape." 

Paris,  1867-1870.  In  1867,  I  had  the  opportunity  of 
making  a  brief  sojourn  in  Paris.  My  sister,  the  Doctor, 
had  gone  to  Paris  immediately  after  the  close  of  the  Civil 
War,  and  having  secured  admission  to  L'Ecole  de  Medicine 
of  the  University  (being  the  first  woman  to  whom  the 
privilege  was  accorded),  was  carrying  on  a  course  of  studies 
which  continued  in  all  for  six  years.  She  was  at  that  time 
domesticated  in  the  family  circle  of  the  Reclus  brothers, 
Elisee  and  Elie,  who  with  their  wives  kept  menage  together 
in  an  economical  but  comfortable  fashion.  The  French- 
man, and  possibly  the  Latin  generally,  seems  to  find  less 
difficulty  in  getting  along  harmoniously  with  his  kin, 
whether  natural  or  "at-law,"  than  is  the  case  with  the 
Briton,  or  with  his  American  cousin.  At  all  events,  these 
brothers  and  the  two  sisters-in-law  made  together  a  very 
harmonious  and  attractive  home  into  which  my  sister 
was  fortunate  in  securing  admission. 

In  1867,  Paris  was  fairly  gay.  The  exhibition  was  in 
progress  and  had  attracted  to  the  capital  a  good  part  of 
the  "world  and  his  wife."  The  country  was,  however, 
beginning  to  feel  the  burdens  of  the  increased  taxes  which 
had  been  caused  by  the  ill-fated  Mexican  expedition  of 


426    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

1861-62.  There  was  a  pretty  strong,  and  as  it  proved  an 
increasing,  opposition  to  the  Empire,  which  some  of  the 
critics  did  not  hesitate  to  call  a  "sham  Empire." 

The  three  wars,  which  were  inititated  in  large  part  at 
least  for  the  purpose  of  strengthening  the  foundations  of 
the  government  and  of  adding  to  the  glory  of  France 
through  diverting  the  causes  of  discontent,  had  evidently 
not  been  fully  successful.  It  is  my  memory,  recalling  the 
newspapers  of  the  day,  that  the  censorship  of  the  press 
was  in  1867  not  very  rigorously  enforced.  The  radical 
journals  certainly  contained  a  full  measure  of  criticism  of 
the  extravagance  of  the  Empire  and  of  the  lack  of  proper 
consideration  for  the  rights  of  the  people.  My  friends, 
the  Reclus,  were  active  members  of  one  or  more  of  the 
radical  societies  and  they  were  looking  forward  to  the 
end  of  the  Empire  in  the  near  future,  whether  by  revolu- 
tion or  otherwise.  Of  the  Prussian  peril,  which  took  shape 
three  years  later,  there  was  at  that  time  no  apprehension. 
In  any  case,  Paris  was  sunshiny  and  gay,  the  Empress  was 
beautiful,  and  the  Emperor,  while  already  looking  ill  and 
careworn,  was  apparently  master  of  the  situation. 

Three  years  later,  I  was  again  in  Paris  and  this  time 
it  was  just  at  the  opening  of  the  war  with  Prussia.  The 
radical  opponents  of  the  war  had  been  outvoted  and  for 
the  time  at  least  radical  opposition  appeared  to  have  been 
crushed  or  merged  into  the  feeling  of  national  patriotism 
that  comes  to  the  front  (and  that  ought  always  to  come 
to  the  front)  when  the  country  is  at  war.  I  saw  in  July, 
marching  down  the  Boulevard  de  Sebastopol,  groups  of 
students,  including  not  a  few  who  a  few  weeks  earlier  had 
been  active  in  the  leadership  of  the  anti-imperial  clubs, 
shouting  "£  Berlin."  There  was  enthusiasm  enough,  but 
it  did  not  rest  upon  a  basis  of  solid  support  for  the  govern- 
ment. The  poor  youngsters,  who  took  up  arms  promptly 
enough,  never  got  to  Berlin  excepting  as  prisoners,  and 


Some  Australian  Friends  427 

many  of  them  never  got  back  at  all  to  their  university 
halls.  One  of  the  most  tragic  pieces  of  modern  French 
literature  is,  I  think,  the  story  by  Daudet,  The  Siege  of 
Berlin,  in  which  the  old  veteran  of  the  early  Napoleonic 
wars,  bed-ridden  but  active-minded,  has,  for  the  sake  of 
saving  his  life,  been  told  by  his  daughter  that  the  French 
army  was  making  constant  progress  across  the  German 
territory.  The  veteran,  who  knew  the  necessary  line  of 
attack,  would  correct  the  statement  of  some  impossible 
movement,  but  did  not  fail  to  accept  the  general  record  as 
correct;  and  then  when,  after  the  surrender  of  Paris,  the 

x 

bugle  announces  the  advance  through  the  Champs-Elysees 
of  the  advance  guard  of  the  conquering  Prussian  army,  the 
veteran  arouses  himself  by  an  almost  impossible  effort  to 
greet  those  whom  he  believes  to  be  the  triumphant  French 
troops  on  their  return  from  the  capture  of  Berlin.  As  his 
eye  catches  not  the  tri-colour,  but  the  black  and  white 
standard  of  Prussia,  the  awful  disillusion  comes  upon  him 
and  crushes  out  his  life.  So  was  France  under  the  leader- 
ship of  its  sham  Empire  crushed  and  disillusioned.  But 
today  it  is  a  united,  a  stronger,  and  a  braver  France  that  is 
fighting  to  preserve  its  national  independence,  to  fulfil 
its  obligations  to  Belgium,  and  to  prevent  the  breaking 
up  of  the  British  Empire.  It  is  France  first  among  the 
allies  that  stands  in  the  way  of  the  covering  of  the  map 
with  the  black  domination  of  the  Prussian  Hohenzollern. 
It  was  chiefly  due  to  the  persistence  of  England  that  in  the 
first  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  Europe  was  saved 
from  the  domination  of  Napoleon.  The  credit  will  in  the 
main,  I  think,  be  due  to  France  when  at  the  close  of  the 
present  war,  the  dream  of  William  of  Berlin  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  Hohenzollern  Empire  shall  have  been 
shattered. 

Some  Australian  Friends.     I  have  had  the  opportunity, 
during  visits  in  London  extending  over  half  a  century,  of 


428    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

meeting  from  time  to  time  returned  Australians,  or  Aus- 
tralians who  were  in  London  for  a  visit.  I  have  nearly 
always  found  myself  drawn  towards  them  with  a  feeling 
of  natural  kinship.  There  is  something  about  an  Aus- 
tralian which,  other  things  being  equal,  makes  him  rather 
nearer  to  an  American  than  is  the  average  Englishman. 
He  seems  to  secure  in  the  wide  stretches  of  his  physical 
domain  a  wider  point  of  view.  He  is  less  likely  to  be 
hampered  by  local  shackles  or  restricted  in  his  method  of 
thought  or  of  action  by  local  traditions.  He  finds  it  easier 
also  to  take  in  the  point  of  view  of  the  other  fellow,  so  that 
conversation  with  Australians  (I  am  speaking  of  men 
whom  one  meets  hurriedly  and  well  in  advance  of  any 
intimacy  of  relations)  may  often  be  easier  than  with  the 
average  Englishman  met  for  the  first  time.  One  of  my 
nearest  friends  in  England  is  an  English-Australian  whom 
I  will  describe  here  simply  as  W.  H.  It  is  not  fair  to  a  man 
who  is  not  in  public  life  to  bring  him  into  a  printed  record 
simply  because  he  is  a  good  fellow.  W.  H.  took  a  venture 
in  Australia  in  his  earlier  years,  and  in  returning  with  a 
competency,  settled  down  to  business  in  London  with  an 
attractive  home  in  a  suburb.  He  did  not  have  time 
for  a  college  training,  but  with  a  natural  curiosity  and 
large  intellectual  ambitions,  he  has  read  largely  and  in- 
telligently, and  is  on  many  subjects  a  very  well-informed 
man.  A  Liberal  in  English  politics,  he  is  able  to  under- 
stand the  point  of  view,  and  sometimes  even  to  sympathize 
with  the  point  of  view,  of  the  Conservative.  With  no 
direct  knowledge  of  affairs  in  the  States,  he  has  a  quick- 
ness of  apprehension  of  American  problems  and  difficulties 
such  as  would  rarely  be  possessed  by  an  Englishman  who 
had  not  visited  the  country.  He  is  a  loyal  friend,  not 
merely  in  the  larger  duties  but  in  the  closer  sympathies 
which  go  to  make  up  the  happiness  of  life's  associations. 
My  sojourns  in  H.'s  Surrey  home  have  constituted  a  most 


A  Diplomat  of  France  429 

attractive  phase  of  my  English  experiences,  and  I  take 
this  opportunity  of  expressing  to  him  (even  if  the  word 
will  be  recognized  only  by  himself)  my  cordial  and  affec- 
tionate appreciation  for  the  companionship  with  which 
he  has  honoured  me  and  for  a  series  of  friendly  services  for 
which  I  am  indebted. 

A  Diplomat  of  France.  I  had  the  opportunity  while  in 
London  in  the  early  eighties  of  coming  to  know  a  clever 
young  attach.6  of  the  French  Embassy,  who  shortly 
thereafter  became  Secretary  of  Legation,  J.  J.  Jusserand. 
The  years  have  rolled  on,  and  as  a  result  of  his  diplomatic 
skill  and  capable  service,  increasing  honours  and  dignities 
have  come  to  my  friend,  but  he  is  still  for  me  the  charming 
vivacious  youngster  with  whom  thirty-odd  years  ago  I 
had  discussed,  from  the  point  of  view  of  two  more  or  less 
critical  outsiders,  ways  and  things  English.  Jusserand 
could  be,  and  was,  frankly  critical  of  many  things  English, 
but  he  was  and  is  devoted  to  England.  He  has  a  better 
knowledge  of  English  literature  than  is  possessed  perhaps 
by  any  English  scholar,  and  he  connects  with  his  know- 
ledge an  illumination  of  view  and  graceful  charm  of  analy- 
sis and  of  expression  which  are  not  easily  to  be  found  in 
studies  by  Englishmen  of  English  literature.  Jusserand 
has  made  himself  an  authority  on  the  subject  of  the 
literature  of  England,  and  particularly  on  Elizabethan 
literature.  My  firm  has  been  well  pleased  to  have  charge 
of  the  American  editions  of  his  authoritative  volumes. 
He  possesses  the  thoroughness  and  the  power  of  specializa- 
tion of  the  German,  but  the  results  of  his  comprehensive 
studies,  are  presented  with  a  sense  of  humour,  a  grace  of 
touch,  and  a  dramatic  picturesqueness  that  are  not  to  be 
found  in  German  literature. 

After  a  long  series  of  years, — I  think  seventeen  in  all, — 
passed  in  London,  he  was  promoted  to  service  on  the  Quai 
d'Orsay,  and  thence  to  the  Legation  in  Copenhagen.  Some 


43°    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

years  back,  by  a  most  fortunate  exercise  of  good  judgment 
on  the  part  of  the  authorities  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  Jusser- 
and  was  passed  on  from  Denmark  to  be  Ambassador  of  the 
French  Republic  at  Washington.  One  may  say  without 
question  that  he  is  the  most  successful  Ambassador  that 
France,  whether  as  a  monarchy,  an  empire,  or  a  republic, 
has  ever  sent  to  the  United  States.  With  a  good  working 
knowledge  of  our  literature  and  institutions,  with  a  quick 
sympathetic  apprehension  which  enables  him  to  take  in 
things  not  already  known,  and  with  a  charm  of  manner 
and  a  sympathetic  nature  that  makes  and  holds  on  to 
friends,  he  has  steadily  increased  the  circle  of  Americans 
who  hold  him  in  affectionate  regard.  His  success  has  been 
added  to,  although  no  assistance  was  necessary,  by  the 
charming  effectiveness  of  Madame  Jusserand.  No  Am- 
bassador can  be  thoroughly  successful  unless  he  has  with 
him  the  right  kind  of  an  Ambassadress.  Madame  Jusser- 
and, with  two  mother  tongues,  with  a  truly  Parisian  grace 
in  the  management  of  a  social  circle,  with  a  sympathetic 
knowledge  of  American  conditions, — her  father  was  a 
successful  American  banker  in  Paris, — and  with  a  quick 
insight  into  character  and  capacity  for  analyzing  people 
that  enables  her  to  recognize  the  characteristics  of  those 
with  whom  she  has  to  do,  and  which  gives  her  the  power 
to  treat  each  person  in  the  most  effective  way  possible, 
is  in  my  impression  easily  the  most  successful  hostess 
since  the  time  of  Dolly  Madison  in  the  management  of 
the  formal  responsibilities  and  the  social  graces  of  a 
Washington  salon.  My  friend  the  Ambassador,  has 
not  only  a  working  knowledge  of  English,  but  he  has 
the  capacity  of  being  eloquent  in  the  acquired  tongue. 
An  occasional  quaintness  in  the  selection  of  words 
merely  adds  to  the  effectiveness  of  the  expression,  and 
his  addresses,  whether  the  subject  be  historical,  or 
biographical,  or  social,  are  all  illuminated  by  that  saving 


The  Century  Club  431 

grace  of  humour,  which  makes  life  worth  while  for  the 
possessor  and  which  helps  to  alleviate  the  botherations  of 
the  lives  of  the  other  fellows.  Those  of  us  who  are  fond 
of  Jusserand  look  forward  with  dread  to  the  time  when 
there  will  come  to  him  the  highest  honour  in  the  French 
diplomatic  service,  the  post  of  Ambassador  to  the  Court 
of  St.  James.  For  this  post,  he  is  undoubtedly  the  best 
prepared  diplomat  in  France,  and  it  is  my  hope  that  by 
the  time  the  appointment  comes  to  him,  France  and 
England  may  be  deciding  together  with  their  allies  on  the 
readjustment  of  Europe,  with  reference  to  principles  of 
justice  and  to  the  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  smaller 
states  and  of  the  peoples  in  such  fashion  as  shall  bring  to 
an  end  the  black  cloud  of  militarism  and  shall  assure 
for  Europe  a  continuing  peace.  In  any  European  con- 
ference representing  the  best  minds  among  European 
diplomats,  my  friend  Jusserand  must  hold  a  high  place. 

The  Century  Club.  I  am  writing  the  closing  lines  of 
these  reminiscences  in  the  library  of  the  Century  Club,  an 
Association  which,  second  only  to  my  family  circle,  I 
have  for  nearly  forty  years  regarded  as  a  home.  It  is  in 
these  rooms  that  I  secure  the  companionship  of  my  nearest 
and  most  valued  friends,  and  it  is  here  also  that  all 
Centurions  treasure  the  memories  of  the  associates  of 
earlier  years  who  have  passed  to  the  great  beyond. 

My  father  was  one  of  the  early  members  of  the  Club, 
and  through  his  influence  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  be 
accepted  into  membership  shortly  after  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War,  and  while  I  was  still  a  youngster.  The  Club 
was  disposed  at  that  time  to  be  hospitable  to  us  young 
veterans  and  to  extend  to  us  the  privilege  of  membership 
not  on  the  ground  of  any  prestige  already  secured,  but 
with  a  friendly  hope  concerning  the  possible  value  of  the 
things  we  might  be  able  to  accomplish  in  the  years  to  come. 

No  Centurion  would  undertake  to  record  in  print  his 


432    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

opinion  of  the  character  and  of  the  value  to  himself  of  the 
Century  Club.  One  would  as  soon  think  of  analyzing  the 
traits  and  qualities  of  the  members  of  his  own  family 
circle.  I  may,  however,  venture  the  opinion  that  there  is 
no  club  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic,  the  associations  of 
which  mean  so  much  for  its  members.  We  have  not  only 
the  privilege  of  the  companionship  of  the  men  who  are 
with  us  today,  but  the  influence  of  the  memories  of  the 
lives  and  the  characters  of  those  who  left  us  yesterday, 
or  on  some  yesterday  in  the  past. 

One  recalls  the  personalities  and  the  careers  of  the  dis- 
tinguished citizens  who  have  presided  over  the  Club  as 
Presidents, — Verplanck,  Bancroft,  Huntington,  Bryant, 
Bigelow,  and  our  own  Choate ;  and  with  hardly  less  interest 
men  such  as  Macdonough,  Rowland,  Gary,  and  Taylor 
who  have  as  secretaries  rendered  such  noteworthy  service 
to  the  Club,  and  who  among  their  other  duties  have  had 
the  task  of  presenting  from  year  to  year  the  memorials  and 
estimates  of  the  Centurions  who  have  passed  away  during 
the  preceding  twelve  months.  To  attempt  to  recall  the 
names  of  the  great  citizens  who  have  been  grouped  with 
the  Centurions  would  be  like  naming  the  brave  men  who 
lived  before  and  since  Agamemnon.  It  would  necessitate 
the  reprinting  in  substance  the  lists  from  the  Club  books. 

One  feature  which  has  always  impressed  me  of  life  in 
the  Century  as  compared  with  my  experience  of  the 
methods  of  other  clubs  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic  is 
the  fact  that  while  the  society  of  the  Club  is  always  digni- 
fied (and  how  could  it  be  otherwise,  bearing  in  mind  the 
character  of  its  members),  it  is  never  formal.  The  rela- 
tion, particularly  among  the  older  members,  is  that  of 
sympathetic  companionship.  It  is  as  if  they  belonged  to  a 
club  family.  While  there  is  always  freedom  of  utterance, 
there  is  the  utmost  consideration  for  the  feelings  and 
prejudices  of  the  other  fellow.  A  distinctive  feature  of  the 


The  Century  Club  433 

Century  is  what  I  should  call  the  hospitality  of  the  group. 
Any  person  is  always  welcome  to  join  a  group  of  Centurions 
which  has  under  discussion  some  subject,  grave  or  gay, 
and  if  by  chance  the  newcomer  has  not  before  met  every 
member  of  the  group  as  then  made  up,  pains  are  promptly 
taken  to  bring  about  the  personal  relation.  It  is  the 
Century  theory  that  the  group,  whether  it  is  to  exist  for 
five  minutes  or  for  an  hour,  is,  or  ought  to  be,  a  social  unit 
so  made  up  that  each  factor  may  be  in  a  position  to  receive 
and  to  contribute  to  the  interest  and  pleasure  of  the  whole. 
This  practice  of  a  prompt  introduction  which  brings  about 
a  personal  relation,  however  momentary,  is,  I  find,  a  source 
of  constant  surprise  to  my  English  friends  when  I  have 
the  opportunity  of  introducing  one  of  these  to  the  Century 
rooms.  The  Englishman  recognizes,  however,  promptly 
enough  that  under  our  method  we  secure  a  social  atmos- 
phere and  a  harmonious  social  relation  and  utterance,  and 
even  sometimes  an  expression  of  the  larger  thought,  such 
as  is  not  possible,  or  as  is  very  rarely  possible,  if  the  group 
includes  men  some  of  whom  have  not  been  brought  into 
personal  relation  with  each  other. 

The  comparative  failure  of  social  relations  in  London 
clubs  (and  I  may  say  in  the  English  receptions  and  gather- 
ings generally)  is  largely  due  to  the  lack  of  thoughtful 
consideration  on  the  part  of  host,  hostess,  and  guests  in 
this  matter  of  bringing  people  into  sympathetic  touch  with 
each  other. 

It  is  a  truism  to  point  out  how  valuable  it  is  to  men 
to  have  some  place  of  gathering  where  they  may  meet 
other  men  outside  of  fixed  relations,  business,  political,  or 
official.  Next  to  affection,  friendship  is,  I  hold,  the  most 
valuable  factor  in  life.  It  does  more  than  anything  else 
to  soften  the  rough  places,  to  lessen  the  impress  of  the  daily 
cares,  to  instil  and  develop  a  larger  regard  for  one's 
fellow-men,  and  to  bring  one  to  the  conclusion  that,  not- 
28 


434    Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Other  Friends 

withstanding    all    the    inevitable    disappointments    and 
botherations,  life  is  worth  living. 

I  may  not  here  name  the  men  in  the  Century  whose 
sympathetic  relations  have  during  the  past  forty  years 
illumined  my  own  life  and  helped  in  more  ways  than  one 
to  develop  whatever  powers  I  possess.  I  simply  take  this 
opportunity  of  expressing  my  appreciation  of  what  has 
been  done  for  me  and  what  has  been  given  to  me  by  this 
group  of  friends  and  by  the  standards  and  methods  of  that 
association  of  good  fellows  who  make  up,  and  who  have 
always  made  up,  the  Century  Club. 


APPENDIX 
XHe  Exiropean  "War 
1914-1915 

I  HAVE  thought  it  desirable  to  include  in  this  volume  a 
series  of  letters  that  I  have  had  occasion  to  bring  into  print 
during  the  past  few  months  which  are  concerned  with  the 
issues  that  have  arisen  in  connection  with  the  war  in 
Europe.  The  events  referred  to  are  in  their  chronology 
somewhat  in  advance  of  the  period  covered  by  my  narra- 
tive, but  it  seemed  to  me  that  this  was  a  convenient  place 
in  which  to  preserve  the  letters  from  oblivion.  They  re- 
present some  definite  opinions  on  matters  on  which  Ameri- 
cans and  others  have  during  1914  and  1915  been  arriving  at 
conclusions,  and  I  decided  that  I  would  leave  the  series  as 
my  contribution  to  the  controversial  literature  of  the  day. 
The  letters  have  to  do  with  matters  that  are  still  in  con- 
troversy. Until  the  war  is  completed,  we  shall  not  have 
before  us  the  full  series  of  documents  which  will  make  clear 
its  causation  and  the  relative  responsibilities  of  the  several 
combatants.  I  have,  however,  found  myself  in  accord  with 
those  Americans,  comprising  as  I  believe  the  great  bulk  of 
our  people,  who  hold  that  the  war  was  one  of  German  ag- 
gression; that  its  main  purpose  was  the  shaping,  under  the 
direction  of  Prussia,  of  a  great  military  Empire  which 
should  dominate  Europe  and  should  also  control,  as  far 

435 


436  Appendix 

as  it  found  such  control  desirable,  the  policy  of  the  Western 
Hemisphere. 

During  the  fifty  years  in  which  I  have  been  visiting 
England,  I  never  read  or  heard  an  utterance  of  an  English- 
man who  wanted  anything  belonging  to  Germany.  There 
has  been  no  little  dread  of  German  invasion  and  of  German 
plans  for  throttling  British  commerce  and  for  breaking 
up  the  British.Empire,  but  as  far  as  I  have  read  the  litera- 
ture of  the  fifty  years  and  have  listened  during  those  years 
to  the  utterances  of  Englishmen,  there  has  been  no  word 
of  ill-will  against  Germany.  It  has  been  fully  recognized 
that  Germany  was  entitled  to  the  natural  development 
to  which  its  industry,  its  scientific  capacity,  and  its  mag- 
nificent powers  of  organization  had  so  thoroughly  entitled 
it.  Visiting  Germany  from  time  to  time  during  those  same 
fifty  years,  I  have  heard  frequently  the  word  that  it  was 
time  the  British  Empire  was  broken  up.  In  the  eighteenth 
century,  said  the  Germans,  the  direction  of  Europe  was 
in  the  hands  of  France;  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
dominating  influence,  mainly  on  the  ground  of  its  control 
of  the  seas,  was  that  of  Great  Britain ;  and  now,  the  twen- 
tieth century  properly  belongs  to  Germany.  Germany 
can  secure  its  rightful  place  in  the  sun  only  through  the 
breaking  up,  or  the  partial  breaking  up,  of  the  British 
Empire.  France  was  to  be  attacked  not  because  there 
was  any  specific  hatred  of  France,  but  because  France 
stood  between  Germany  and  Great  Britain.  To  quote  a 
German  utterance,  "France  was  this  time  to  be  crushed 
so  thoroughly  that  never  again  should  she  stand  in  the  way 
of  Germany."  The  appropriation  and  devastation  of 
Belgium,  a  country  which  Prussia  had  sworn  to  protect, 
constituted  a  mere  incident  in  the  general  plan,  and  an 
incident  which,  from  the  German  point  of  view,  was  of  no 
importance.  As  German  books,  published  not  as  romances 
but  in  the  form  of  official  reports  of  members  of  the  mili- 


The  European  War  437 

tary  staff,  have  made  clear,  the  plan  for  the  breaking  up 
of  the  British  Empire  carried  with  it  the  intention  of 
securing  also  a  dominating  influence  in  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere. It  was  Germany's  original  intention  to  pick  its 
quarrel  with  Great  Britain  at  a  time  when  Great  Britain 
would  have  no  allies  available,  and  if  this  course  (certainly 
prudent  from  a  military  point  of  view)  had  been  carried 
out,  we  may  recognize  that  Great  Britain  would,  without 
the  all-powerful  aid  of  Russia,  France,  Italy,  and  plucky 
little  Belgium,  have  had  a  very  hard  time  indeed  in  main- 
taining its  independence.  Certain  British  colonies  were  to 
be  appropriated  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  these 
were  to  be  utilized  as  coaling  stations  and  as  bases  of  at- 
tack against  coast  cities  of  the  United  States. 

There  is  no  difficulty  [says  Colonel  von  Edelsheim]  in  get- 
ting possession  of  Boston,  New  York,  and  Washington.  We 
should  not  be  so  foolish  as  to  attack  the  fortifications  in  front. 
The  Americans  have  no  army  and  it  is  only  necessary  for  us, 
with  the  selection  of  the  proper  weather,  to  land  forces  at 
Nahant,  for  instance,  for  the  capture  of  Boston  and  at  South- 
ampton Beach  for  taking  possession  of  New  York.  The  two 
cities  would  then  be  held,  with  the  alternative  of  destruction  or 
of  a  substantial  ransom.  Washington  would  also  be  occupied, 
not  because  it  possesses  any  importance,  but  simply  as  a 
matter  of  sentiment.  When  the  coast  cities  have  been  taken 
possession  of,  the  Republic  would  crumble. 

The  correspondence  with  Austria  brought  out  from  the 
Italian  archives  of  1912  make  clear  that  the  plans  for  the 
war  went  back  of  the  actual  out-break  at  least  two 
years.  The  murder  of  the  Archduke  constituted  simply 
a  convenient  incident  or  pretext  for  the  beginning  of 
operations. 

With  this  understanding  of  the  causation  and  purposes 
of  the  war,  and  with  the  belief  that  the  cause  of  England 


438  Appendix 

and  her  allies  is  the  cause  of  civilization,  and  that  it  is 
only  through  the  overthrow  of  the  militarism  of-  the 
Hohenzollerns  that  any  assured  peace  can  be  brought  to 
Europe,  I  found  myself  coming  into  print  from  time  to 
time  in  controversy  with  the,  not  very  large,  group  of 
Americans,  or  German-Americans,  who  were  trying  to 
secure  the  sympathy  of  the  United  States  for  the  fight 
that  was  being  waged  by  Germany.  At  the  time  this 
book  comes  into  print,  the  war  may,  I  trust,  have  been  in 
substance  decided.  The  letters,  written  as  they  were  with 
partial  information,  will  have  to  stand  for  themselves. 
They  represent  at  least  honest  convictions  and  they  state, 
as  clearly  as  the  writer  knew  how,  what  in  his  judgment 
should  be  the  attitude  and  the  action  of  American  citizens 
in  this  great  struggle.  Americans  look  forward,  with  the 
end  of  the  war,  to  securing  the  influence  that  belongs  to  the 
greatest  of  neutral  states  in  bringing  about  a  settlement 
that  shall  give  an  assured  peace.  Such  settlement  should 
give  the  beginnings  at  least  of  the  organization  of  a  world's 
federation  of  states  with  a  Supreme  Court  at  The  Hague, 
and  with  a  world's  police  force,  military  and  naval,  con- 
tributed pro  rata  by  the  several  members  of  the  federation, 
by  the  aid  of  which  the  decisions  of  the  Court  can  be 
enforced  and  peace  can  be  maintained.  Such  a  world's 
federation  is  for  the  present  a  dream,  but  the  history  of 
the  world  shows  that  dreams  become  ideals  and  that 
ideals  finally  take  shape  as  assured  realities.  This  federa- 
tion of  the  world  may  not  come  about  in  my  lifetime,  but 
it  will  come. 

August  i,  1915. 

The  following  letters,  with  the  exception  of  the  two 
otherwise  specified,  were  written  by  myself.  It  has  not 
been  thought  necessary  to  repeat  the  signature. 


The  European  War  439 

A  BETTER  WAY  FOR  GERMANY 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Evening  Post: 

SIR:  The  defenders  of  Germany  have  asserted  that  the 
present  war  was  undertaken  not  for  purposes  of  aggression  or 
for  the  expansion  of  the  Empire,  but  in  order  to  defend  German 
territory  and  "the  civilization  of  Europe"  against  the  risk  of 
Slavonic  domination.  Something  in  the  way  of  foundation 
could  have  been  secured  for  this  contention  if  the  German 
campaign  had  been  started  on  a  different  plan,  and  its  first 
operations  had  been  directed  eastward  instead  of  westward. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  that  in  place  of  hurling  the  bulk  of 
its  magnificent  army  in  fierce  onslaught  to  crush  France  (and 
incidentally  to  desolate  Belgium  which  she  had  sworn  to  pro- 
tect) Germany  had  placed  on  its  western  frontier  merely  an 
army  of  defence,  and  had  utilized  the  main  force  of  its  great 
fighting  machine  against  Russia.  It  seems  almost  certain  that 
her  position,  from  a  military  point  of  view,  would  today  have 
been  very  much  stronger. 

In  our  own  Civil  War,  which  was  fought  through  with 
muzzle-loaders,  it  was  our  experience  that  the  army  attacking 
an  intrenched,  or  even  a  well-selected,  position,  lost,  as  a  rule, 
from  three  to  four  times  more  men  than  were  lost  by  the  de- 
fending force.  Today,  with  the  rapid-firing  and  far-carrying 
breech-loaders,  and  with  the  much  more  effective  artillery, 
the  advantage  for  the  defenders  is  enormously  increased. 

It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  an  army  of  500,000  men, 
placed  on  the  well-fortified  western  frontier  of  Germany,  would 
have  proved  sufficient  to  withstand  any  attacking  force  that 
France,  acting  alone,  would  have  been  able  to  bring  together. 

If  France,  in  connection  with  her  obligations  to  Russia,  and 
her  hope  of  securing  the  return  of  her  old  provinces,  had  felt 
compelled  to  enter  the  war,  she  would  have  been  under  the 
necessity  of  acting  as  an  aggressor.  In  this  case,  she  could 
hardly  have  counted  upon  the  support  of  England,  while  the 
plucky  men  of  Belgium,  who  are  now  fighting  for  their  homes, 
for  liberty,  and  for  life,  would  not  have  placed  themselves  with 
the  enemies  of  Germany. 


44°  Appendix 

Italy,  which  has  denied  any  obligation  to  support  Germany 
in  a  "  war  of  aggression,"  might  have  found  it  difficult  to  refuse 
aid  to  defend  from  an  invader  the  territory  of  her  old-time  ally. 

Under  such  conditions,  the  Kaiser  would  have  been  free  to 
carry  out  in  full  and  effectively  his  promise  to  stand  in  "shining 
armour"  by  the  side  of  Austria  (which  has  certainly  been  very 
much  in  need  of  larger  co-operation),  and  the  task  left  for  Rus- 
sia might  easily  have  proved  too  great  even  for  her  huge  armies. 

In  entering  the  war  in  this  fashion,  Germany  would  have 
saved  herself  from  the  acts  which  have  brought  upon  her  the 
condemnation  of  public  opinion  throughout  the  world.  There 
would  have  been  for  her  no  "necessity"  of  trampling  upon  her 
treaty  obligations  to  protect  Belgium  and  Luxemburg.  She 
would  not  have  felt  driven,  under  the  necessity  of  furthering 
the  cause  of  "civilization,"  to  destroy  universities  and  cathe- 
drals, to  burn  towns,  and  to  levy  spoliation  indemnities.  There 
would  also  have  been  no  requirement  (one  might  perhaps 
better  say  no  opportunity)  for  the  annexation  of  the  neutral 
state  which  she  had  agreed  to  protect — an  annexation  which 
will  probably  prove  to  be  but  temporary. 

With  a  war  so  undertaken,  Germany  would  have  had  fair 
claim  to  the  support  of  public  opinion  throughout  the  world; 
and  her  good  name  would  have  been  preserved  for  the  genera- 
tions upon  whom  will  rest  the  task  of  maintaining  and  develop- 
ing the  Empire. 

Louis  XIV.  and  Napoleon  could  afford  to  disregard  public 
opinion;  but  the  twentieth  century  has  arrived  at  a  different 
standard  for  national  conduct ;  and  when  the  war  is  over,  it  will 
be  realized  that  the  world's  opinion  counts  not  only  for  ethics, 
but  for  the  shaping  of  the  destinies  of  nations. 

NEW  YOKK,  October  2,  1914. 

THE  MODERN  ATTILA 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Tribune. 

SIR:  Fourteen  years  ago  the  German  Emperor,  in  address- 
ing his  troops,  said:  "Let  all  who  fall  into  your  hands  be  at 
your  mercy;  gain  a  reputation  like  that  of  the  Huns  under 


The  European  War  441 

Attila."  Barbarian  that  he  was,  Attila  spared  Milan;  but, 
acting  under  imperial  instructions  such  as  that  above  quoted, 
the  generals  of  the  Kaiser  have  not  hesitated  to  destroy  Lou- 
vain,  the  Oxford  of  Belgium,  with  its  priceless  manuscripts  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  or  to  batter  down  cathedrals,  or  to  burn 
undefended  towns,  or  to  place  crushing  assessments  on  towns 
in  a  territory  which  Germany  had  sworn  to  protect  and  which  is 
now,  in  form  at  least,  annexed  to  the  German  domain. 

Yesterday  came  the  report  of  an  appeal  to  the  Prince  Im- 
perial by  the  mother  superior  of  a  children's  orphan  asylum 
that  the  building  covering  her  little  ones  might  be  spared.  The 
appeal  was  denied  and  the  ruins  of  the  orphanage  make  one 
more  monument  in  the  track  of  the  modern  Huns. 

Today  we  have  the  text  of  the  offer  made  by  Kaiser  Attila 
of  a  prize  to  the  German  aeronaut  who  shall  first  succeed  in 
dropping  bombs  into  the  city  of  London,  a  city  not  at  this 
time  under  siege. 

The  German  officers  make  use  as  an  excuse  for  the  burning 
of  undefended  communities  the  crime  of  "sniping,"  that  is  to 
say,  of  shooting  done  by  men  in  citizen's  clothes.  If  it  is  a 
crime  for  a  man,  not  a  soldier,  to  defend  his  home,  his  women, 
and  his  children,  what  should  be  the  term  applied  to  the  act  of 
the  war  lord  of  the  German  forces  in  ordering  bombs  to  be 
thrown  upon  unarmed  citizens? 

NEW  YORK,  Oct.  5,  1914. 

GERMAN  METHODS 

"  The  following  letter,  which  appeared  in  The  Times  of 
the  1 4th  inst.,  seems  to  us  such  a  calm  and  unbiassed 
opinion  on  German  methods  that  it  is  well  worth  reprint- 
ing. As  the  head  of  the  great  publishing  house  of  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons,  Major  Putnam's  opinion  cannot  fail  to 
interest  our  readers,  while,  as  representing  both  a  civilian 
and  a  military  point  of  view,  his  sober  words  have  great 
weight.  In  addition,  it  is  the  view  of  an  American,  and 
may  be  taken  as  that  held  by  the  bulk  of  his  nation.  At 


442  Appendix 

this  moment,  while  the  book  trade  is  earnestly  engaged  in 
raising  a  fund  for  the  booksellers  of  Belgium,  it  may  well 
ponder  over  the  words  of  Major  Putnam : 

' '  I  cannot  find  in  the  history  of  modern  warfare,  even 
in  the  fierce  campaigns  of  the  first  Napoleon,  examples  of 
such  ruthless  murders  as  have  characterized  the  German 
occupation  of  Belgium.'"  The  Clique  (of  London). 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Times. 

SIR:  As  an  excuse  for  the  official  orders  under  which  towns 
have  been  burned  and  burgomasters  and  other  unoffending 
citizens  have  been  put  to  death,  the  Germans  allege  that  their 
soldiers  have  been  shot  at  from  attics  and  from  hedges  by 
persons  not  wearing  uniforms.  They  contend  that  the  only 
way  to  protect  their  troops  against  this  disorderly  "sniping" 
by  citizens  is  to  terrorize  by  wholesale  devastation  and  murder 
the  communities  controlled  by  them. 

Soldiers  have  grounds  for  objecting  to  irregular  combatants. 
Those  of  us  who,  half  a  century  ago,  were  sniped  at  in  Virginia 
and  Louisiana  found  it  a  very  unsatisfactory  experience.  The 
soldier  has  a  right  to  be  able  to  identify  his  enemy  by  the  cus- 
tomary uniform;  but  it  is  also  the  case  that  a  soldier  acting 
under  civilized  orders  is  made  to  understand  that  only  those 
bearing  the  uniform  are  to  be  treated  as  enemies,  while  the 
non-combatant  citizens,  especially  women  and  children,  are 
entitled,  even  within  an  enemy's  country,  to  protection,  or  at 
least  to  freedom  from  assault. 

Under  the  accepted  rules  of  modern  warfare  it  is  permissible 
to  execute  a  person  who,  being  without  a  uniform,  takes  the 
responsibility  of  joining  in  the  fight.  As  a  matter  of  practice 
such  a  discipline  has  been  very  rarely  enforced. 

In  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  for  instance,  in  1864,  the  "crip- 
pled" old  farmers  whom  we  saw  in  the  daytime  hobbling 
around  their  fields  became  at  night  active  raiders  with  Mosby, 
and  rarely  troubled  themselves  to  change  their  garments.  I 
do  not  believe,  however,  that  any  attempt  was  made  either  in 
the  Shenandoah  or  elsewhere  (except  in  the  case  of  a  man 


The  European  War  443 

shown  to  be  a  spy)  to  make  the  absence  of  uniform  a  ground 
for  the  execution  of  the  citizen  who  was  using  his  rifle  to  de- 
fend his  home.  Still  less  would  it  have  been  possible  in  our 
own  war  for  a  commander  to  make  such  shooting  by  citizens  a 
pretext  for  the  destruction  of  a  town  or  for  the  execution  of 
town  officials.  Even  an  invading  soldier  may  feel  sympathy 
for  a  peasant  who,  maddened  by  the  destruction  of  his  home 
and  by  the  risk  of  death  for  wife  and  children,  seizes  a  rifle  to 
defend  that  which  he  holds  most  dear.  The  defence  of  the 
home  is,  in  fact,  the  first  duty  of  a  man,  and  a  peasant  is  not  to 
be  held  responsible  for  ignorance  of  military  regulations. 

I  cannot  find  in  the  history  of  modern  warfare,  even  in  the 
fierce  campaigns  of  the  first  Napoleon,  examples  of  such  ruth- 
less murders  as  have  characterized  the  German  occupation  of 
Belgium.  The  shooting,  under  the  orders  of  Napoleon,  in 
1812,  of  the  publisher  Palm,  has  always  been  referred  to  as  an 
indefensible  crime.  While  it  is  contrary  to  the  rules  of  civilized 
warfare  for  civilians  to  "snipe"  at  soldiers,  it  is  still  more  in- 
consistent, not  only  with  military  discipline  but  with  any 
decent  standard  of  conduct  for  soldiers,  to  snipe  at  unarmed 
and  helpless  civilians.  The  killing  in  Paris  and  (before  the 
siege)  in  Antwerp  of  men,  women,  and  children  by  bombs 
thrown  under  orders  from  military  aeroplanes  must  be  charac- 
terized simply  as  acts  of  murder. 

In  the  war  of  1870-71  but  one  town,  Bazeilles,  was  burned  by 
order,  and  I  recall  no  instance  of  the  execution  of  town  officials 
for  acts  committed  by  peasants. 

The  present  war  indicates  that  in  more  ways  than  one  there 
has  been  in  Germany  a  lowering  of  the  moral  standard  of 
action,  national  and  military. 

The  Germany  of  William  I.  suffered  a  demoralization  under 
the  leadership  of  the  unscrupulous  Bismarck,  and  as  a  result  of 
its  success  in  crushing  France  it  was  struck  with  the  craze  for 
world  domination,  which  has  since  developed  so  portentously ; 
but  the  management  of  the  present  war  shows  that,  under  the 
teaching  of  leaders  like  Treitschke,  Bernhardi,  and  William  II., 
there  has  been,  since  1870,  serious  deterioration.  The  present 
Kaiser  and  his  officers  are  saying  and  doing  things  which  would 


444  Appendix 

have  brought  shame  to  the  old  Emperor,  and  which,  if  only  on 
the  ground  of  their  stupidity,  would  have  mortified  Bismarck. 
NEW  YORK,  Oct.  26. 

RUSSIAN  ATROCITIES 

To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

It  is  possible  that  the  inclosed  letter  from  a  German  neigh- 
bour (who  is  a  stranger  to  me)  maybe  of  interest  to  your  readers 
as  an  example  of  a  curious  confusion  of  thought  into  which 
have  fallen  Germans,  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  in  regard 
to  the  issues  of  the  present  struggle  and  the  conduct  and  the 
actions  of  the  German  army.  I  am  inclosing  copy  of  my 
reply  to  Mr.  Thiemes. 

NEW  YORK,  Nov.  4,  1914. 

NEW  YORK,  Oct.  28, 1914. 
Mr.  GEORGE  HAVEN  PUTNAM. 

DEAR  SIR:  Now  that  you  have  shown  your  "true"  spirit  of 
neutrality  toward  Germany,  would  you  not  be  kind  enough  to 
give  us  a  similar  piece  of  your  wisdom  and  describe  in  detail 
the  way  the  Russians  acted  in  East  Prussia  during  their  short 
stay  there,  and  how  they  murdered,  tortured,  and  assaulted 
women  and  girls,  and  cut  children  and  infants  to  pieces  without 
even  the  provocation  of  "sniping"? 

This,  your  new  article  in  The  Times,  I  anticipate  with  the 
greatest  interest. 

RUDOLF  F.  THIEMES. 

RUDOLF  F.  THIEMES,  Esq. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  Your  letter  of  the  28th  inst.,  intended  as  a 
rejoinder  to  a  letter  recently  printed  by  me  in  The  Times,  is 
written  under  a  misapprehension  in  regard  to  one  important 
matter. 

The  Americans,  who  are  in  a  position  to  judge  impartially 
in  regard  to  the  issues  of  the  war,  have  criticized  the  official 
acts  which  have  attended  the  devastation  of  Belgium,  not 
because  these  acts  were  committed  by  Germans,  but  because 


The  European  War  445 

they  were  in  themselves  abominable  and  contrary  to  precedents 
and  to  civilized  standards. 

If  the  Russians  had,  under  official  order,  burned  Lemberg, 
including  the  university  and  the  library,  and  executed  the 
Burgomaster,  they  would  have  come  under  the  same  con- 
demnation from  Americans  that  has  been  given  to  Germans  for 
the  burning  of  Louvain  and  Aerschot  and  the  shooting  of  the 
Aerschot  Burgomaster. 

I  am  myself  familiar  with  Germany.  I  am  an  old-time 
German  student,  and  I  have  German  friends  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic,  and  I  am  in  a  position  to  sympathize  with  the 
legitimate  aspirations  and  ideals  of  these  German  friends. 

I  am  convinced,  however,  that  no  nation  can  secure  in  this 
twentieth  century  its  rightful  development  unless  its  national 
conduct  is  regulated  with  a  "decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of 
mankind."  The  references  made  in  my  Times  letters  were 
restricted  to  official  actions;  things  done  under  the  direction  of 
the  military  commanders  acting  in  accord  with  the  instructions 
or  the  general  policy  of  the  imperial  Government. 

The  misdeeds  of  individual  soldiers  are  difficult  to  verify. 
While  these  are  always  exaggerated,  it  remains  the  sad  truth 
that  every  big  army  contains  a  certain  percentage  of  ruffians, 
and  that  when  these  ruffians  are  let  loose  in  a  community, 
with  weapons  and  with  military  power  behind  them,  bad  things 
are  done.  It  is  my  own  belief  that  the  material  in  the  German 
army  (which  is  the  best  fighting  machine  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen)  will  compare  favorably  with  that  of  any  army  in 
the  world,  and  that  the  percentage  of  wrongful  acts  on  the 
part  of  the  German  soldiers  has  been  small.  Such  misdeeds, 
sometimes  to  be  characterized  as  atrocities,  are  the  inevitable 
result  of  war,  and  they  bring  a  grave  responsibility  upon  a 
Government  which  (to  accept  as  well  founded  the  frank  utter- 
ances of  the  leaders  of  opinion  in  Germany)  has  initiated  this 
war  for  the  purpose  of  "crushing  France  and  of  breaking  up 
the  British  Empire." 

You  appear  to  think  that  it  is  in  order  for  Germany  to  visit 
upon  unoffending  Belgians  reprisal  for  the  misdeeds  (as  far  as 
such  misdeeds  may  be  in  evidence)  committed  by  Russians  in 


446  Appendix 

East  Prussia.    I  cannot  see  that  this  contention  is  in  accord 
with  justice  or  with  common  sense. 
NEW  YORK,  Oct.  28,  1914. 

THE  GERMANS  IN  BELGIUM 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Evening  Post. 

SIR:  Your  correspondent,  Mr.  Julius  Meyer,  and  other 
German-Americans  who  have  written  to  me  personally,  find 
ground  for  annoyance  at  my  characterization  of  the  acts  of  the 
German  military  authorities  against  non-combatants  in  Bel- 
gium and  in  France.  Mr.  Meyer  asks  "what  name  Mr.  Put- 
nam would  apply  to  the  action  of  the  Belgian  Mayor  of  the 
town  of  Battice  who,  while  welcoming  German  troops  to  his 
town,  suddenly  drew  a  revolver  and  shot  the  commander." 
He  contends  that  the  killing  of  unarmed  citizens  (men,  women, 
and  children)  in  Paris  and  (before  the  siege)  in  Antwerp  (and 
later,  it  may  be  added,  in  Warsaw)  by  bombs  thrown,  under 
orders,  from  military  aeroplanes,  which  I  had  criticized  as  acts 
of  murder,  was  a  legitimate  military  action  because  "after  a 
declaration  of  war,  fortified  places  are  at  any  time  legitimate 
objects  of  attack  by  any  available  means." 

In  the  several  letters  that  I  have  brought  into  print  I  have 
carefully  avoided  reference  to  the  so-called  individual  "atroci- 
ties." The  misdeeds  of  individuals,  whether  soldiers  or  citizens, 
are  difficult  to  verify.  While  these  are  often  concocted  and 
always  exaggerated,  it  remains  the  sad  truth  that  every  big 
army  contains  a  certain  percentage  of  ruffians,  and  that  when 
these  ruffians  are  let  loose  in  a  community  with  weapons  and 
with  military  power  behind  them,  bad  things  are  done.  It  is 
my  own  belief  that  the  material  in  the  German  army  (probably 
the  best  fighting  machine  that  the  world  has  ever  seen)  will 
compare  favorably  with  that  of  any  army  in  the  world,  and 
that  the  percentage  of  wrongful  acts  on  the  part  of  German 
soldiers  has  been  small.  Such  misdeeds,  sometimes  to  be  criti- 
cized as  atrocities,  are  the  inevitable  result  of  war,  and  they 
bring  a  grave  responsibility  upon  a  Government  which  (to 
accept  as  well  founded  the  frank  utterances  of  Bernhardi  and 


The  European  War  447 

other  German  leaders)  has  initiated  this  war  for  the  purpose  of 
crushing  France  and  of  breaking  up  the  British  Empire. 

My  own  criticisms,  and  those  of  Americans  generally  who 
are  in  a  position  to  judge  impartially  in  regard  to  the  issues  of 
the  war,  have  been  restricted  to  the  official  acts  which  have 
attended  the  devastation  of  Belgium  and  the  destruction  of 
cathedrals  and  towns  in  France.  We  condemn  these  acts  not 
because  they  have  been  committed  by  Germany,  but  because 
they  are  in  themselves  abominable,  and  are  contrary  to  pre- 
cedent and  to  civilized  standards.  As  an  old  soldier  and  as  a 
student  of  the  history  of  campaigns,  I  have  some  knowledge 
of  war  regulations  and  of  the  procedure  of  civilized  countries. 
I  maintain  the  contention  that  unless  or  until  a  city  is  under 
siege  (and  the  notice  of  siege  is,  of  course,  a  caution  to  citizens 
to  withdraw  as  far  as  such  withdrawal  is  possible)  the  throwing 
of  bombs  into  groups  of  unarmed  people,  men,  women,  and 
children,  is  not  warfare  in  any  present  use  of  the  term.  The 
killing  of  these  unoffending  people  can,  of  course,  have  no 
effect  whatsoever  upon  the  success  or  the  direction  of  the 
campaign ;  and  if  this  be  the  case,  such  killing  is  properly  to  be 
characterized  as  murder. 

Mr.  Meyer  refers  to  the  dropping  of  bombs  in  Dusseldorf 
by  an  English  aviator.  I  may  remind  him  that  these  bombs 
were  not  dropped  in  the  city  of  Dusseldorf,  but  at  a  military 
station  well  outside  the  city,  that  is  to  say  on  the  sheds  con- 
taining Zeppelins  which  were  being  prepared  for  an  assault 
upon  London. 

Various  references  have  been  made  in  the  letters  from  your 
German  correspondents,  to  individual  acts  of  this  or  that 
person  in  a  Belgian  village  or  city.  Some  of  the  statements 
are  probably  true,  but  the  larger  number  are,  as  we  may  well 
understand  from  the  history  of  similar  occurrences,  either  exag- 
gerations or  imaginations.  A  single  act  is  multiplied  again  and 
again.  In  any  case,  the  action  of  one  peasant  or  one  citizen 
gives  no  legitimate  ground  for  a  reprisal  visited  upon  the 
whole  community. 

I  have  not  seen  any  verified  reference  to  the  shooting  or  a 
German  officer  by  a  Belgian  Mayor.  It  is  not  in  order  at  this 


448  Appendix 

time  to  use  individual  reports  for  which  there  is  no  verifica- 
tion as  the  basis  either  for  the  criticism  of  the  Germans  or  of 
their  antagonists.  If  the  Russians  had,  under  official  order, 
burned  Lemberg,  including  the  university  and  the  library,  and 
executed  the  Burgomaster,  they  would  have  come  under  the 
same  condemnation  from  Americans  that  has  been  given  to  the 
Germans  for  the  burning  of  Louvain  and  Aerschot,  and  for 
the  shooting  of  the  Aerschot  Burgomaster. 

I  am  myself  familiar  with  Germany.  I  am  an  old-time  Ger- 
man student,  and  I  have  German  friends  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic;  I  am,  therefore,  in  a  position  to  understand  and  to 
sympathize  with  the  legitimate  aspirations  and  ideals  of  these 
German  friends.  I  am  convinced,  however,  that  no  nation 
can  secure  in  this  twentieth  century  its  rightful  development 
unless  its  national  conduct  is  regulated  with  "decent  respect 
to  the  opinions  of  mankind." 

I  repeat  that  all  criticisms  of  action,  whether  Belgian,  French, 
— or  German,  should  be  restricted  to  things  done  under  the  di- 
rection of  the  military  commanders  acting  in  accord  either 
with  specific  directions  or  with  the  general  policy  of  their 
respective  Governments. 

One  of  my  correspondents  seemed  to  think  that  it  was  in 
order  for  Germany  to  visit  upon  unoffending  Belgians,  reprisals 
for  the  misdeeds  (as  far  as  such  misdeeds  might  come  into 
evidence)  committed  by  Russians  in  East  Prussia.  I  cannot 
see  that  such  contention  is  in  accord  either  with  justice  or  with 
common  sense. 

Americans  have  a  further  ground  ror  one  condemnation  of 
the  methods  pursued  by  the  Germans  in  Belgium.  Belgium 
has,  by  formal  act,  been  annexed  to  Germany,  and  the  inhabi- 
tants now  possess  the  blessings  and  privileges  belonging  to 
subjects  in  a  German  Reichsland.  The  food  that  was  found 
by  the  German  armies  in  the  Belgian  cities,  including  the  mass 
of  supplies  that  had  been  accumulated  in  Antwerp,  has  been 
taken  for  the  use  of  the  troops.  Many  houses  in  town  and  in 
country  have  been  burned  in  connection  with  the  operations  of 
war.  In  addition  to  this  devastation,  a  number  of  towns  have 
been  burned  by  order;  the  starving  and  impoverished  inhabi- 


The  European  War  449 

tants  have  made  their  way  by  the  thousand  into  Holland. 
Those  that  remain  in  Belgium  are  in  a  state  of  destitution.  If 
these  people  are,  as  Berlin  claims,  subjects  of  Germany,  it  is 
the  duty  of  Germany  to  care  for  them  with  food  and  with 
clothing.  It  seems  evident,  however,  that  no  adequate  provi- 
sion is  being  made  for  these  distressed  people,  and  Americans 
are  now  sending  food  supplies  to  save  from  starvation  people 
for  whom  Germany  is  properly  responsible.  It  is  upon  these 
destitute  people  that  the  German  authorities  are  now  imposing 
heavy  indemnity  payments  for  the  crime  of  defending  their 
country  against  an  invader  who  had  sworn  to  protect  it. 
NEW  YORK,  November  Qth. 

A   GERMAN   "OBSESSION" 

To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

I  have  received  a  letter  (one  of  a  number  that  have  come  to 
me  during  the  past  weeks)  which  may  be  of  interest  to  the 
readers  of  The  Times.  It  impresses  me  as  a  typical  illustration 
of  the  curious  obsession  that  has  come  upon  Germans  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  as  a  result  of  the  German  craze  for  world 
domination  and  of  their  bitter  hatred  of  England,  the  power 
which,  as  they  have  convinced  themselves,  constitutes  the  sole 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  such  domination. 

The  letter,  which  comes  from  a  well-known  German  mer- 
chant of  this  city,  reads  as  follows: 

' '  DEAR  SIR :  My  attention  has  been  called  to  certain  letters 
written  by  one  George  Haven  Putnam  in  The  Evening  Post  and 
The  New  York  Times.  I  find  these  letters  very  amusing,  as  they 
show  that  you  get  your  information  from  the  lying  English 
sheets  and  their  'annexes'  (The  New  York  Times')  in  this 
country.  I  take  it  you  are  an  -American,  but  if  you  are  an 
Englishman  please  consider  this  letter  as  not  having  been 
written.  It  is  useless  to  argue  with  people  who  get  their  in- 
formation from  the  lying  English  sheets. 

"I  believe  you  have  a  business  house  in  London,  but  not  on 
the  Continent.  I  write  you  to  say  what  a  contemptible 
scoundrel  a  man  must  be  who  sits  in  his  warm,  comfortable 
29 


45°  Appendix 

library  and  who  advertises  himself  with  lies  at  the  expense  of 
the  German  people  who  are  dying  for  their  country.  I  returned 
from  England  last  week  and  I  know  conditions  from  personal 
experience,  and  no  one  can  stop  me  from  telling  the  truth.  I 
am  sorry  that  there  is  in  your  head  such  a  howling  wilderness. " 


NEW  YORK,  Nov.  21,  1914. 

NATIONAL    DEFENCE 

.To  the  Editor  of  The  Sun. 

SIR:  At  the  meeting  held  on  the  evening  of  December  ist, 
in  which  was  brought  into  organization  the  National  Security 
League,  the  purpose  of  the  league  was  presented  in  a  series  of 
resolutions  which  were  adopted  without  dissent  by  the  citizens 
present,  a  very  representative  gathering. 

In  the  reports  of  the  meeting  as  printed  in  the  papers  of 
Wednesday,  or  at  least  in  the  majority  of  these  reports,  space 
was  not  found  for  the  resolutions.  These  resolutions  were 
worded  to  make  clear  to  the  public  the  aims  and  the  purpose 
of  the  association,  and  the  measures  that  it  proposed  to  take 
in  order  to  bring  these  purposes  into  effect.  I  am  enclosing 
copy  of  the  text  of  the  resolutions,  which  may,  I  hope,  be 
brought  into  print. 

I  contend  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  statements  here  pre- 
sented of  the  purposes  of  our  league  to  warrant  the  statement 
which  has  been  made  in  certain  papers  in  this  city  that  our 
proceedings  were  in  any  way  "hysterical."  The  men  who  are 
interesting  themselves  in  the  work  of  this  league  simply  desire 
to  make  sure,  first,  that  we  secure  for  the  expenditure  that  is 
being  made  in  our  army  and  navy  the  largest  possible  measure 
of  efficiency,  and  secondly,  that  a  careful  investigation  should 
be  made  as  to  whether  the  time  may  not  have  come,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  large  changes  that  are  now  taking  shape  in  inter- 
national relations,  for  some  change  in  the  policy  of  the  nation 
in  regard  to  its  army  and  naVy. 

I  am  myself  not  in  favor  of  any  great  extension  of  the  force 
of  our  army.  I  do  not  agree  with  certain  of  my  friends  who 


The  European  War  451 

take  the  ground  that  an  army  of  not  less  than  500,000  men 
should  be  brought  into  existence  and  should  be  maintained  in 
organization.  I  think  it  probable  that  an  extension  of  the  force 
to  150,000  men  would  be  sufficient  to  meet  the  present  require- 
ments for  defence,  or,  so  to  speak,  for  "insurance."  I  think, 
however,  that  much  more  important  than  the  increase  of  the 
rank  and  file  is  a  provision  for  a  substantial  addition  to  our 
force  of  trained  officers.  It  is  my  judgment  that  the  training 
facilities  of  West  Point  should  be  extended  as  promptly  as 
possible  so  that  we  could  look  forward  in  the  near  future  to 
bringing  into  graduation  at  least  twice  the  number  of  officers 
who  are  now  available  from  year  to  year. 

If  these  officers  could  be  connected  with  half  regiments, 
with  companies  of,  say,  fifty-six  men  instead  of  112,  we  should 
have  a  framework  available  in  which  could  be  utilized  promptly 
the  service  of  men  from  the  street  with  comparatively  little  train- 
ing. It  was  our  experience  in  the  Civil  War  that  a  regiment 
which  had  through  hard  service  been  reduced  to  one  quarter 
of  its  original  size  could  be  kept  in  condition  of  substantial 
efficiency  by  being  filled  up  with  green  men.  The  influence, 
association,  and  training  given  by  a  small  group  of  veterans 
works  very  promptly  in  making  soldiers  of  good  material, 
however  green. 

On  the  other  hand  regiments  that  came  into  the  field  entirely 
green,  officers  and  men  alike  without  training,  were  for  months 
to  come  of  comparatively  little  service. 

If  the  army  authorities  could  provide  a  well  organized  sys- 
tem of  "cadres "  or  skeleton  regiments  it  would  be  safe  to  have 
confidence  in  filling  up  these  skeleton  regiments  with  good 
fighting  material  that  could  be  easily  trained. 

It  would  be  of  advantage  if  provision  should  be  made  for  the 
training  of  a  larger  number  of  officers  who  could  be  utilized 
even  for  such  skeleton  organization. 

The  requirement  for  actual  service  on  the  part  of  such 
graduates  might  be  made  short,  from  two  to  three  years. 
These  men,  who  had  received  a  military  education  from  the 
State,  would  always  be  available  for  recall  from  the  ranks  of 
citizens.  The  most  noteworthy  leaders  in  our  Civil  War  on 


452  Appendix 

both  sides  of  the  line  were  West  Point  officers  who  had  gone 
into  civil  life  but  who  were  quite  ready  when  the  country  called 
to  take  up  again  their  military  duties. 

In  planning  for  further  increased  expenditure  for  the  navy 
I  should  be  of  opinion,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  main  purpose 
is  for  defence,  that  the  larger  portion  of  the  funds  should  be 
utilized  for  submarines  rather  than  for  an  increase  in  the  build- 
ing plans  for  the  larger  vessels.  The  course  of  the  present  war 
has  shown  that  submarines  constitute  the  best  defence  for 
coasts  and  for  harbours. 

We  have  been  to  the  expense  of  providing  coast  fortifications. 
It  seems  elementary  to  emphasize  the  importance,  if  only  as  a 
matter  of  securing  a  return  from  a  business  investment,  to 
insist  that  these  fortifications  should  be  maintained  in  a  state  of 
efficiency,  an  efficiency  in  line  with  the  latest  developments  in 
the  requirements  of  fortifications  and  of  coast  artillery.  It 
seems  also  essential  that  we  should  make  adequate  provi- 
sion for  ammunition,  particularly  that  which  calls  for  a  larger 
amount  of  time  for  its  production. 

I  see  nothing  in  recommendations  of  this  character  to 
warrant  the  term  "hysterical."  If  a  merchant  with  valuable 
material  in  a  warehouse  finds  that  the  neighborhood  is  exposed 
to  some  fresh  risks  from  fire  he  increases  his  insurance.  The 
recent  breaking  down  of  international  relations,  the  evidence 
that  with  some  nations  at  least  it  is  not  safe  to  put  trust  in 
treaties  or  in  guarantees,  and  the  probability  that  action  of 
some  kind  will  be  required  on  the  part  of  the  United  States 
which  ought  to  have  back  of  it  the  dignity  and  the  weight  of  or- 
ganized national  power,  indicate  in  the  judgment  of  many  of 
our  citizens  that  the  time  has  come  for  a  larger  expenditure  for 
national  insurance. 

NEW  YORK,  December  4th. 

THE    RESOLUTIONS 

Whereas  it  has  been  the  general  policy  of  our  Government  to 
avoid  entering  into  entangling  alliances  or  international  rela- 
tions that  would  be  likely  to  involve  war  responsibilities,  and 


The  European  War  453 

with  natural  reliance  upon  our  geographical  position  and  the 
well  tested  courage  and  public  spirit  of  our  citizens  to  rest  the 
defence  of  the  country  upon  a  minimum  of  military  and  naval 
forces,  and  upon  the  calculation  that  it  should  prove  possible 
in  an  emergency  to  organize  with  sufficient  promptness  a  citi- 
zens' defensive  force;  and 

Whereas  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  citizens  here  assembled  that 
under  the  changed  conditions  of  international  relations  it  may 
not  be  wise  to  entrust  our  national  defence  to  hurried  emer- 
gency measures ; 

Now,  to  the  end  that  public  sentiment  may  be  aroused  and 
popular  opinion  may  be  organized  throughout  the  entire 
breadth  of  the  land  for  the  purpose  of  insuring  the  enactment 
by  Congress  and  by  other  legislative  bodies  of  the  measures 
required  for  national  security,  and  as  a  first  step  toward  such 
general  action  to  procure  a  proper  inquiry  on  the  part  of  the 
Administration  and  of  Congress,  and  to  make  preparations 
for  whatever  action  the  results  of  such  inquiry  may  seem  to 
render  essential ; 

Resolved,  I.  That  we  now  constitute  an  association  which 
shall  be  called  The  National  Security  League. 

II.  That  a  committee  of  fifty  be  appointed  by  the  chair- 
man, with  power  to  add  to  its  numbers,  to  create  an  executive 
committee  and  such  other  committees  as  may  be  found  ad- 
visable; to  adopt  suitable  by-laws  for  the  governance  and  for 
the  extension  of  the  league ;  to  take  steps  to  secure  the  creation 
of  branch  leagues  or  associated  leagues  throughout  the  United 
States  with  a  central  body  which  shall  have  the  general  control 
of  the  business  of  the  leagues;  and  to  take  all  measures  that 
may  be  found  desirable  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the 
security  of  the  nation  and  for  educating  the  opinion  of  our 
citizens  in  regard  to  the  conditions  under  which  national 
security  must  be  based,  and  to  secure  such  legislation  as  may 
be  required  for  these  patriotic  purposes. 

III.  To  enroll  in  its  membership,  with  such  conditions  as 
may  be  found  advisable,  all  citizens  who  are  in  accord  with  the 
purposes  and  the  work  of  this  league. 


454  Appendix 

EXPORTS  TO  BELLIGERENTS 

To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

I  learn  that  legislation  is  proposed  which  has  for  its  purpose 
the  restriction  of  exports  by  American  manufacturers  of  muni- 
tions or  other  supplies  which  are  required  for  the  service  of  the 
contestants  in  the  present  war.  This  legislation  is  urged  on  the 
ground  that,  under  existing  conditions,  one  group  of  contest- 
ants which,  with  the  ocean  open  to  their  vessels,  is  able  to 
obtain  these  supplies,  secures  an  undue  advantage  over  the 
other  group,  the  commerce  of  which  has  been  blocked  by  the 
opposing  navies. 

According  to  my  understanding  such  a  change  (or  any 
change  arrived  at  during  the  progress  of  the  war)  in  the  provi- 
sions of  the  statutes  or  regulations  controlling  exports  would 
itself  constitute  a  breach  of  neutrality.  The  munitions  and 
supplies  in  question  are  open  to  the  purchase  of  all  of  the  con- 
testants, the  shipments  being  of  course  made  at  the  risk  of 
either  the  shipper  or  the  buyer.  If  in  the  progress  of  the 
contest  the  commerce  of  one  group  of  contestants  has  been 
blocked,  the  condition  is  one  for  which  the  United  States  is  in 
no  way  responsible,  and  of  which  it  ought,  according  to  my 
understanding,  to  take  no  official  cognizance;  that  is  to  say, 
it  ought  not  to  make  the  success  of  the  operations  of  one  group 
of  contestants  the  ground  for  shaping  American  legislation 
so  as  to  favour  or  to  protect  another  group.  I  trust  that  this 
view  of  our  national  policy  and  of  our  national  responsibility 
will  meet  the  approval  of  Congress  and  of  the  President,  and 
that  it  may  secure  the  all-valuable  influence  of  the  support  of 
The  New  York  Times. 

NEW  YORK,  Dec.  9,  1914. 

THE  TEACHINGS  OF  TREITSCHKE 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Evening  Post. 

SIR:  Prof.  Morris  Jastrow,  Jr.,  who  is  a  recognized  author- 
ity in  several  great  divisions  of  scholarship,  finds  ground  for 
exception  to  certain  of  the  conclusions  presented  in  an  in- 


The  European  War  455 

troduction  contributed  by  me  to  our  American  edition  of 
"Treitschke's  Essays." 

The  statement  that  "Germans  quote  Treitschke  and  refer 
to  Treitschke  as  an  authority"  (for  the  policies  and  actions  of 
Germany  of  today),  he  terms  "a  frightful  exaggeration." 

My  sentence  is  written  in  the  present  tense,  and  it  has  to  do 
with  the  use  of  Treitschke's  authority,  and  of  the  phrases 
both  of  Treitschke  and  of  Treitschke's  pupil  Bernhardi,  as  the 
justification  for  Germany's  action  in  the  present  war.  It 
would,  of  course,  have  been  an  exaggeration  if  I  had  taken 
the  ground  that  during  the  years  since  Treitschke's  death  he 
had  held  the  position  of  the  "chief  historical  authority  of 
Germany." 

The  theory  upon  which  the  present  war  policy  of  Germany 
appears  to  be  based,  i.e.,  that  the  "weakling"  nation  has  no 
rights  which  the  larger  Power  is  bound  to  respect,  is  the  doc- 
trine of  Treitschke.  Treitschke  writes,  for  instance:  "The 
whole  development  of  modern  state  wisdom  tends  to  crush 
smaller  states.  ...  In  the  parcelling  up  and  distribution  of 
land  outside  of  Europe,  Germany  has  fallen  short.  .  .  .  Ger- 
many will  be  happy  when  she  has  received  her  due  and 
possesses  the  Rhine  in  its  entirety.  ..."  (This  involves,  of 
course,  the  possession  by  Germany  of  both  Belgium  and 
Holland.)  He  says  further: 

"The  new  great  Power  of  Central  Europe  has  to  settle  its 
accounts  with  all  great  Powers.  We  have  settled  our  accounts 
with  Austria-Hungary,  with  France,  and  with  Russia.  The 
last  settlement,  the  settlement  with  England,  will  probably 
be  the  most  difficult." 

Bernhardi,  Treitschke's  pupil,  says:  "A  pacific  agreement 
with  England  is  a  will  o'  the  wisp  which  no  serious  German 
statesman  would  trouble  to  follow." 

I  should,  of  course,  not  claim  that  Treitschke's  place  as  an 
historian  has  been  comparable  to  that  held  "by  Mommsen, 
Ranke,  Macaulay,  and  Carlyle."  What  impresses  Americans 
is  that  German  actions  and  German  utterances  of  today  are 
following  precisely  the  lines  of  the  teaching  of  this  historian 
and  preacher  (of  a  national  policy),  who  died  in  1896,  and 


456  Appendix 

whose  pupils,  now  middle-aged  men,  are  doing  what  they  can 
to  put  this  policy  into  force. 

The  reference  in  my  introduction  to  Clausewitz  as  Treitsch- 
ke's  "pupil"  is,  of  course,  a  stenographer's  error.  It  should 
read  " Treitschke's  master."  The  correction  was  made 
promptly  in  the  plates,  and  finds  place  in  the  new  edition  of 
the  book  now  printing. 

Professor  Jastrow  is,  of  course,  quite  correct  in  his  view  that 
the  famous  song,  "  Deutschland  uber  Alles  "  has  not  in  the  past 
years  been  held  as  expressing  an  ambition  for  world  suprem- 
acy. As  a  student  in  Germany,  I  have  joined  in  that  song 
with  full  sympathy. 

The  interpretation  given  to  it  in  the  past  years  has  been,  as 
Professor  Jastrow  and  other  good  Germans  point  out,  an  ex- 
pression simply  of  patriotic  devotion  to  the  Fatherland. 

It  is  my  contention,  however,  that  under  the  war  spirit, 
which  has  developed  steadily  since  1871  up  to  the  outbreak  in 
August,  1914,  the  term  "Deutschland  iiber  Alles"  has  (and 
very  naturally)  come  to  express  the  present  war  spirit  of  the 
Fatherland;  a  war  spirit  which,  as  openly  avowed,  is  connected 
with  the  necessity  of  breaking  up  the  British  Empire.  A  long 
series  of  utterances  have  emphasized  the  belief  that  Great 
Britain  stands  in  the  way  of  the  natural  and  proper  develop- 
ment of  Germany.  Between  Germany  and  Great  Britain 
stands  France,  and  "France  must  be  crushed  so  that  she  never 
again  will  stand  in  the  way  of  Germany." 

The  relation  of  Germany  to  the  colonial  possessions  of  Great 
Britain  recalls  the  conversation  between  young  Sheridan  and 
his  father.  "Boy,"  said  the  elder  Sheridan,  "it  is  time  that 
you  took  a  wife."  "Certainly,"  said  the  younger,  "whose 
wife  shall  I  take?" 

The  devastation  of  Belgium  for  refusing  at  the  outset  to 
concede  a  peaceful  passage  to  the  German  armies,  a  concession 
which  would  have  caused  Belgium  to  become  an  ally  with 
Germany  in  its  assault  upon  France,  is,  I  contend,  a  natural 
sequence  of  the  teachings  of  Treitschke  in  regard  to  the  neces- 
sary fate  of  the  "weakling." 

Treitschke  contends  that,  "if  a  state  is  not  in  a  condition  to 


The  European  War  457 

maintain  its  neutrality,  all  talk  about  the  same  is  mere  clap- 
trap." He  adds:  "All  treaties  are  concluded  with  a  mental 
reservation,  rebus  sic  stantibus" 

The  volume  of  Treitschke's  Essays  makes  the  first  presenta- 
tion to  American  readers  of  his  writings.  Treitschke's  works 
in  the  original  German  had  never  been  published  in  this  coun- 
try, and  I  trust  that  the  production  of  this  book  in  an  American 
edition  may  prove  of  service  to  German-American  citizens,  as 
well  as  to  those  who  can  only  read  the  English  text.  I  am  sorry 
if  to  German-Americans  my  introduction  may  give  ground  for 
criticism  or  annoyance,  but  by  these  readers  it  can  easily  be 
disregarded. 

Treitschke  speaks  for  himself;  but  as  his  recommendations 
are  being  followed  so  closely  by  the  Kaiser  and  his  advisers  it 
did  not  seem  to  me  inaccurate  to  say  that  he  spoke  also  for 
Germany. 

NEW  YORK,  December  I4th. 

BELGIUM'S  EXHIBIT 

To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

I  note  in  a  recent  announcement  from  Paris  that  an  exhibit 
from  Belgium  is  available  for  the  World's  Fair  in  San  Francisco. 
It  would,  of  course,  have  been  impracticable  to  put  into  shape 
in  the  devastated  territory  of  the  poor  little  kingdom  an 
exhibit  that  would  make  a  fair  representation  of  its  industries. 
Such  an  exhibit  had,  however,  been  prepared  a  year  or  more 
back  for  the  exposition  in  Lyons,  and  this  is  now  in  readiness 
to  be  forwarded  at  the  proper  time  to  San  Francisco. 

I  suggest  that  it  would-be  in  order,  as  a  matter  of  international 
courtesy  and  in  recognition  of  the  exceptional  disasters  that 
have  come  upon  Belgium  in  its  attempt  to  defend  its  liberties, 
for  the  government  of  the  United  States  to  offer  to  bear  the 
expense  of  the  shipment  from  Lyons  to  San  Francisco  of  the 
Belgian  exhibits  and  of  their  return  later.  The  presence  in 
San  Francisco  of  a  representation  of  Belgian  industries  placed 
under  the  Belgian  flag  will  constitute  a  legitimate  protest  on 
the  part  of  the  plucky  Belgians  against  the  attempted  annexa- 


458  Appendix 

tion  of  their  kingdom  by  Germany,  an  annexation  which  will, 
I  trust,  not  be  confirmed. 
NEW  YORK,  Jan.  n,  1915. 

NATIONAL  DEFENCE 

To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

In  a  letter  recently  brought  into  print,  George  Foster  Pea- 
body,  who  is-  well  known  as  a  patriotic  and  public-spirited 
citizen,  points  out  that  if  Belgium  had,  like  Luxemburg,  de- 
cided not  to  attempt  to  protect  itself  with  an  army  or  with 
fortifications,  the  German  forces  would  have  passed  through 
Belgian  territory  on  their  way  to  the  invasion  of  France  with- 
out any  "necessity"  for  devastation.  Belgium  would,  in  this 
manner,  like  Luxemburg,  have  saved  the  lives  and  the  prop- 
erty of  its  citizens.  From  this  example  in  recent  history  Mr. 
Peabody  reaches  the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  wiser  for  the 
United  States,  in  like  manner,  to  avoid  making  provision  by 
troops  and  by  fortifications  for  national  defence,  or  at  least  to 
minimize  such  provision.  By  this  policy,  according  to  Mr. 
Peabody,  our  country  would  be  saved  from  the  risk  of  the 
losses  attendant  upon  war. 

It  is  probably  true  that  if  the  United  States  should  frankly 
abandon  any  intention  of  defending  its  coast  or  its  territory, 
and  should  permit  its  territory  to  be  utilized  by  a  foreign  power 
as  such  power  might  find  convenient,  there  need  be  no  loss  of 
life,  and  possibly  no  material  loss  of  property,  to  American 
citizens.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  the  citizens  of  the  Repub- 
lic will  be  prepared  to  accept  the  policy  advocated  by  Mr. 
Peabody. 

The  government  is  under  obligations  to  maintain  not  only 
the  lives  and  the  property  of  its  citizens,  but  their  liberties 
and  the  independence  and  the  honour  of  the  Republic  that  these 
citizens  have  established.  I  do  not  believe  that  Americans  are 
willing  to  leave  the  Republic  which  was  created  by  their  an- 
cestors, and  which  has  been  maintained  through  much  ex- 
penditure of  American  life  and  of  American  treasure,  to  be  left 
subject  to  the  will,  practically  to  the  domination,  of  any 


The  European  War  459 

foreign  power  that  might  have  interests  or  that  might  make 
interests  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Poor  little  Belgium  has 
sacrificed  much  in  its  attempt  to  maintain  its  liberty,  but  it 
has  at  least  saved  its  honour  and  its  manhood.  The  United 
States  are  not  a  poor  nation,  and  with  our  hundred  millions  of 
people  it  is  not  proper  for  us  to  be  classed  with  the  weaklings 
among  nations,  but  if  we  are  not  to  be  so  classed  we  must  be 
prepared  to  maintain  not  only  our  own  independence,  but  the 
policies  in  regard  to  world  matters  that  we  believe  to  be  right. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  also  that  we  have  upon  us  not  only 
the  duty  of  defending  our  own  shores,  but,  according  to  the 
present  interpretation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  of  protecting 
against  European  aggression  the  whole  territory  of  two  con- 
tinents. South  America  and  Mexico  constitute  for  us  a  larger 
Belgium.  England  is  now  doing  all  in  its  power  to  fulfil  its 
obligations  for  the  protection  of  the  independence  of  Belgium, 
but  if  England  had  had  its  forces  in  readiness  Belgium  need  not 
have  been  devastated.  We  have  taken  the  ground  that  no 
European  power  shall  undertake  to  secure  redress  by  the  use  of 
armed  forces  for  such  grievances  as  may  have  been  caused  to 
its  citizens  in  Mexico  or  South  America.  Such  a  position  places 
upon  us  the  responsibility  for  securing  the  redress  that  may  be 
due. 

A  nation  has  no  right  to  assume  a  responsibility  that  it  is  not 
prepared  to  carry  out.  It  is,  therefore,  essential,  if  the  Repub- 
lic is  to  protect  its  liberties  and  to  fulfil  its  obligations,  that  it 
should  maintain  forces  adequate  for  the  purpose.  It  is  the 
hope  that  after  the  present  European  war  is  brought  to  a  close 
some  progress  may  be  made  toward  the  establishment  of  a 
world's  court  the  decisions  of  which  can  be  enforced  by  an 
army  made  up  by  contingents  from  the  various  states  taking 
part  in  a  world's  federation. 

This  is  the  aim,  and  a  very  legitimate  aim,  of  the  men  who 
are  preaching  the  gospel  of  the  world's  peace.  With  such  a 
federal  organization,  however,  the  United  States  will  be  called 
upon  to  provide  as  its  share  of  the  federation  army  a  force  pro- 
portioned to  its  national  wealth  and  to  its  hundred  millions  of 
population.  The  necessary  measures  should  be  taken  now 


460  Appendix 

toward  the  organization  of  such  force.  The  Republic  must 
fulfil  its  obligations,  and  this  cajmot  be  done  under  the  policy 
of  disarmament  advocated  by  writers  like  Mr.  Peabody. 

Not  one  cent  for  aggression,  but  whatever  millions  are 
necessary  for  defence. 

NEW  YORK,  Jan.  14,  1915. 

AMERICA'S  ATTITUDE  TOWARDS  THE  WAR 

(From  the  London  Bookseller) 

"Mr.  Karl  W.  Hiersemann,  the  well-known  publisher 
of  Leipsic,  sent  to  Mr.  G.  H.  Putnam  a  reply  to  the 
letter  on  the  war  which  appeared  in  a  previous  issue  of 
The  Bookseller.  Mr.  Putnam  has  written  to  him  the 
following  rejoinder,  which  he  sends  to  us  for  publication, 
in  the  hope  that  if  the  original  fails  to  pass  the  German 
Censor  Mr.  Hiersemann  may  read  it  in  our  columns. 
Apart  from  this,  Mr.  Putnam's  letter  is  of  such  importance 
that  we  are  sure  all  our  readers  will  be  glad  to  have  it." 

NEW  YORK,  Jany.  21,  1915. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  I  am  writing  to  acknowledge  receipt  of 
your  favour  of  December  24th,  and  report  as  follows  in  regard 
to  the  matters  in  question : — 

1.  I  am  appreciative  of  the  friendly  tone  of  your  letter. 
It  is  evident  that  we  are  very  far  apart  in  our  opinions  and 
convictions  in  regard  to  the  great  issue  of  the  present  European 
contest,  but  it  also  appears  that  you  have  a  friendly  memory 
of  my  old-time  relations  with  Germany,  and  particularly  with 
the  German  book  trade,  and  that  you  are  prepared  to  believe 
that  I  would  not  knowingly  put  on  record  any  conclusions  in 
regard  to  German  motives  or  German  actions  that  I  did  not 
believe  to  be  well  founded. 

2.  Our  friends  in  Germany  evidently  do  not  realize  the 
status  of  public  opinion  in  the  United  States;  and  in  so  far  as 
they  have  been  told  that  this  opinion  is  unfavourable  to  the 
cause  of  Germany — is,  in  fact,  increasingly  indignant  at  Ger- 
man policy  and  German  official  action  and  utterances — they 


The  European  War  461 

are  not  able  to  understand  how  this  result  should  have  come 
about. 

3.  The  American  people  were  at  the  time  the  war  began, 
and  are  still,  in  a  better  position  than  any  other  people  to 
arrive  at  an  impartial  judgment  in  regard  to  the  matters  at 
issue.  We  have  in  our  population  a  larger  German  element 
than  is  possessed  by  any  other  nation  outside  of  Germany ;  we 
have  had  in  our  hands,  both  through  direct  correspondence 
with  Germany  and  through  the  comprehensive  and  very  per- 
sistent efforts  of  the  German  publication  committee  in  the 
United  States,  an  enormous  mass  of  material  presenting  the 
German  side  of  the  case;  the  defence  for  German  actions  that 
have  been  criticized;  the  intentions  and  the  ideals  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  and  of  the  people  back  of  the  Empire.  No 
effort  has  been  made  by  any  one  of  the  other  parties  to  the 
contest  to  influence  public  opinion  as  has  been  done  by  Ger- 
many, and  it  is  necessary  to  report  that,  as  far  as  is  concerned 
the  opinion  of  Americans  who  are  not  German  by  birth  or  by 
heritage,  the  attempt  to  secure  American  approval  for  German 
action  has  utterly  failed.  It  has,  in  fact,  failed  with  not  a  few 
of  the  more  important  of  the  German-Americans  themselves 
— the  two  or  three  survivors  of  the  men  of  '48  and  the  children 
of  the  forty-eighters.  In  addition  to  this  special  mass  of  Ger- 
man material,  the  Americans  have  had  in  their  hands,  and 
have  examined  intelligently  and  impartially,  the  official  docu- 
ments or  books,  Yellow  Books,  Grey  Books,  etc.,  of  England, 
France,  and  Belgium;  and  also  the  official  book  of  Germany, 
which,  unfortunately,  contains  some  very  serious  gaps,  more 
particularly  regarding  the  correspondence  with  Austria. 
They  will  be  interested  in  examining  the  official  book  of 
Austria,  whenever  such  book  may  be  brought  into  print. 

After  a  careful  examination  of  the  evidence,  the  Americans 
have  convinced  themselves,  first,  that  the  responsibility  for 
initiating  this  desolating  and  abominable  war  rests  with 
Germany  and  with  Austria,  and  primarily  with  Germany, 
which  controlled  the  action  of  Austria. 

Second.  That  the  war  had  long  been  prepared  for  by  Ger- 
many. The  aggressive  policy  that  the  Empire  had  in  view  is 


462  Appendix 

clearly  set  forth  by  Bernhardi,  and  the  steps  that  have  been 
taken  and  the  new  methods  of  action  brought  into  the  warfare 
are  directly  in  line  with  the  counsel  and  the  teachings  of 
Bernhardi. 

Third.  That  the  larger  or  ultimate  purpose  of  the  struggle 
is  the  breaking  up  of  the  British  Empire,  of  large  portions  of 
which  Germany  hopes  to  become  the  inheritor. 

In  sojourns  in  England  during  the  past  fifty  years  I  never 
read  or  heard  an  English  utterance  expressing  desire  for  any- 
thing that  belonged  to  Germany.  In  Germany,  and  among 
German-Americans  outside  of  Germany,  I  have  repeatedly 
heard  the  prophecy  that  the  English  Empire  must  be  broken 
up,  and  that  its  colonial  power  must  be  transferred  to  Ger- 
many. It  is  my  belief  that  there  has  been  during  the  years 
since  1871  a  persistent  concoction  of  misstatements  and  mali- 
cious statements  about  England  which  have  had  for  their 
purpose  the  arousing  of  German  antagonism.  I  have  heard 
many  German  references  to  "English  perfidy"  and  "treachery," 
but  I  have  never  yet  been  given  a  single  bit  of  evidence  in 
regard  to  such  treachery.  England  has  been  fearful  of  German 
invasion  and  of  German  aggression  upon  Belgium,  for  the  safety 
of  which  she  had  made  herself  responsible,  but  there  could,  in 
fact,  never  have  been  any  interest  on  the  part  of  England  in 
making  aggression  against  German  territory  or  German  power. 

It  is  the  American  belief  that  Germany  has  introduced  into 
this  war  practices,  some  of  which  in  connection  with  the  new 
mechanism  of  warfare  establish  barbarous  and  indefensible 
precedents,  of  a  character  never  before  known  in  civilized 
warfare. 

The  unwarranted  invasion  of  Belgium,  for  the  criminality  of 
which  there  are  various  evidences,  including  the  frank  ad- 
missions of  von  Bethmann-Hollweg  and  von  Jagow;  the  burn- 
ing by  order  of  Belgian  cities;  the  taking  of  hostages  and 
making  these  hostages  responsible  for  individual  acts  (which 
were  entirely  out  of  their  control) ;  the  shooting  of  these  hos- 
tages; the  armies'  appropriation  for  their  use  of  the  great  stores 
of  food  collected  in  Antwerp  and  elsewhere,  so  that  the  com- 
munities were  left  in  a  state  of  starvation,  and  that  people, 


The  European  War  463 

who  are  now,  under  the  claim  of  Berlin,  subjects  to  Germany, 
have  to  be  saved  from  death  by  the  charity  of  the  United  States ; 
and  the  imposition  upon  these  devastated  communities,  in 
some  cases  after  the  formal  annexation,  of  crushing  indemni- 
ties :  all  constitute  new  and  bad  precedents  in  warfare. 

In  addition  to  these,  the  readiness  to  assail,  whether  by 
warships  or  by  Zeppelins,  women  and  children — measures 
that  could  in  no  way  influence  the  course  of  campaigns — are 
filling  Americans  with  indignation. 

A  large  number  of  us  here  are  now  strongly  in  favour  of  our 
government  taking  part  with  other  neutral  states,  such  as  Italy 
and  Scandinavia,  to  protest  against  what  can  only  be  described 
as  futile  barbarism.  I  have  before  me  an  article  written  by  the 
son  of  an  old  German  forty-eighter,  who  is  now  the  owner  and 
editor  of  a  great  paper,  headed  "Savage  and  Futile  Warfare." 

This  article  takes  the  ground  that  the  latest  German  air 
raid  must  fall  under  "the  heaviest  condemnation  of  civilized 
men."  It  is  "pure  savagery  and  without  warrant  in  inter- 
national law."  The  Americans  have  convinced  themselves 
further  that  the  only  hope  of  future  continued  peace  is  in  the 
success  of  the  Allies.  The  success  of  Germany  must  mean  the 
continuance  of  conditions  that  make  for  war. 

Old  soldiers  like  myself  can  feel  a  full  measure  of  respect 
and  admiration  for  the  magnificent  fighting  power  shown  by 
the  German  armies,  but  no  intelligent  man  would  permit  his 
appreciation  of  the  fighting  qualities  of  the  soldiers  to  confuse 
his  judgment  of  the  cause  for  which  the  fighting  was  done. 

Half  a  century  ago,  we  soldiers  of  the  North  had  reason  to 
respect  the  magnificent  fighting  done  by  General  Lee  and  the 
armies  of  the  South,  but  the  success  of  those  armies  would 
have  meant  the  permanence  of  slavery,  the  breaking  up  of  the 
Republic,  and  great  loss  to  the  civilization  of  the  world. 
France  and  England  are  fighting  for  existence.  I  have  before 
me  a  German  utterance  brought  into  print  early  in  the  war, 
which  takes  the  ground  that  France,  standing  in  the  way  of 
Germany,  that  is  to  say,  between  Germany  and  England,  "  must 
be  so  crushed  that  she  would  never  again  stand  in  the  way  of 
Germany."  Americans  feel  that  Belgium,  absolutely  innocent 


464  Appendix 

of  any  wrong  of  aggression,  has  made  a  plucky  fight  for  its 
liberties,  and  must  have  those  liberties  restored. 

I  am  gratified  that  you  should  think  my  letter  would 
prove  of  sufficient  interest  to  German  readers  to  cause  it  to  be 
brought  into  print  in  the  Borsenblatt.  I  have  been  interested 
in  borrowing  a  copy  of  the  paper  in  order  to  read  the  editorial 
comments.  The  paragraph  that  was  omitted  from  this  letter 
was  intended  to  point  out  that  Bismarck  could  not  have 
approved  of  the  diplomatic  management,  or  lack  of  manage- 
ment, which  at  the  outset  of  the  war  brought  upon  Germany 
unnecessary  enemies. 

If  Germany  had  restrained  itself  from  invading  Belgian 
territory,  which  it  had  sworn  to  protect,  and  had  allowed 
France  to  become,  in  form  at  least,  the  aggressor,  the  position 
of  England  and  of  Italy  would  have  been  very  difficult.  Eng- 
land (although  the  fight  would  in  the  end  have  been  for  her 
own  existence)  would  at  the  outset  at  least  have  had  no  tech- 
nical ground  for  interference,  while  the  support  of  Italy  for 
Germany  might  have  been  claimed  under  the  terms  of  the 
alliance.  Italy's  decision  that  the  war  was  one  of  "German 
aggression"  was  itself  an  important  factor  in  shaping  Ameri- 
can opinion. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  with  any  termination  of  the  war 
there  can,  within  the  lifetime  of  a  man  of  my  years,  be  a  healing 
of  the  great  cleavages  that  have  come  up  between  whole 
nations  and  between  the  individuals  of  those  nations  who  have 
had  friendly  relations  with  each  other. 

With  many  friends  in  Germany  and  German  friends  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  I  can  only  still  hope  that  when  this  craze 
for  German  domination  has  passed  away  (and  it  is,  of  course, 
perfectly  natural  that  the  citizens  of  a  nation  at  war  should 
have  their  judgment  clouded  in  regard  to  the  rightfulness  of 
the  actions  of  their  government)  the  people  of  Germany  may 
themselves  be  prepared  to  do  their  part  towards  bringing  about 
such  federation  of  the  nations  of  Europe  as  to  insure  continued 
peace. 

Heir  KARL  W.  HIERSEMANN, 
Leipsic,  Germany. 


The  European  War  465 

GERMAN  PROPAGANDA 

NEW  YOEK,  Jan.  29,  1915. 
To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

I  send  you  a  copy  of  my  answer  to  a  letter  that  comes  to  me 
from  the  Germany  University  League.  There  has  for  some 
time  been  in  existence  in  the  United  States  a  verein,  or  union, 
of  German-American  students,  and  as  there  is  no  requirement 
for  a  new  association  of  the  same  kind,  it  is  my  impression  that 
this  so-called  University  League  represents  simply  another 
division  of  the  persistent  work  of  the  German  propaganda 
committee. 

Jan.  26, 1915. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  I  am  writing  to  acknowledge  receipt  of 
your  suggestion  that  I  should  accept  membership  in  the 
University  League.  I  am  an  old-time  German  student  and  I 
have  since  1860  had  many  friends  in  Germany  and  a  number  of 
German  friends  also  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  I  have  found 
myself  keenly  interested  in  German  literature  and  in  sym- 
pathy with  not  a  few  of  the  German  ideals  and  purposes.  I 
have  also  found  cause  for  admiration  for  the  wisdom  and  effi- 
ciency shown  in  the  management  of  many  of  the  social  and 
political  problems  in  Germany,  and  particularly  in  the  control 
and  development  of  the  resources  of  its  municipalities.  Under 
other  circumstances  I  should  doubtless  have  found  much  to 
interest  me  in  associating  with  the  members  who  are  to  be 
brought  together  in  the  University  League,  although,  as  I  am 
now  an  old  man  and  have  little  time  for  frivolities,  I  am 
planning  for  no  present  additions  to  my  list  of  clubs,  associa- 
tions, or  committees. 

Under  the  conditions  now  obtaining,  I  find  myself,  however, 
unwilling  to  meet  Germans,  whether  friends,  acquaintances, 
or  strangers.  Our  thoughts  are  full  of  the  great  issues  con- 
nected with  or  arising  from  the  present  European  war,  and  we 
are  looking  at  these  issues  from  very  different  points  of  view. 

It  is  my  judgment  that  we  Americans  have,  from  the  outset, 
been  in  a  better  position  than  are  any  other  people  to  secure  a 
trustworthy  knowledge  of  the  events  and  conditions,  and  to 


466  Appendix 

arrive  at  an  impartial  judgment  in  regard  to  the  causation  of 
the  war,  the  relative  responsibilities  for  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  and  the  interests  of  Europe  and  the  world  as  to  the  results 
of  the  war.  We  have,  with  but  few  exceptions,  convinced 
ourselves  that  the  responsibility  for  beginning  the  war  rests 
with  Germany  and  with  Austria,  and  primarily  with  Germany, 
which  not  only  influenced,  but  controlled  the  action  of  Austria. 

We  believe  that  the  preparation  for  this  war  had  been  made 
by  Germany  years  back,  and  that  the  Servian  incident  merely 
served  as  a  convenient  occasion  for  the  outbreak. 

We  believe  that  the  main  purpose  of  the  war  is  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  British  Empire  and  the  taking  over  of  her  colonial 
possessions,  to  which  Germany  has  long  expected  to  become 
the  heir.  France  stands  between  Germany  and  England  and, 
to  use  the  German  words,  "France  must  be  crushed  this  time 
so  thoroughly  that  she  shall  never  again  stand  in  the  way  of 
Germany."  The  unauthorized  invasion  and  the  devastation 
of  Belgium  seem  to  have  been  considered  by  the  German  ruler 
as  but  trivial  incidents  which  should  carry  no  weight  in  connec- 
tion with  this  larger  policy. 

I  am  myself  an  old  soldier,  and  I  have  looked  with  increasing 
indignation  at  the  manner  in  which  Germany  is  conducting 
this  war  and  at  the  barbarous  precedents  that  in  this  twentieth 
century  are  being  made  under  German  official  orders.  The 
destruction,  by  order,  of  Belgian  cities,  the  taking  of  hostages, 
and  the  making  of  these  hostages  responsible  for  the  actions 
of  individuals  whom  they  were  not  in  a  position  to  control; 
the  shooting  of  many  of  these  hostages;  the  appropriation  for 
the  use  of  the  armies  of  the  food  which  had  been  stored  in 
Antwerp  and  elsewhere,  so  that  the  people  in  Belgium,  now 
officially  classed  as  "subjects  of  Germany,"  are  dependent 
upon  American  charity  to  save  them  from  starvation;  the 
imposition  upon  these  starving  and  ruined  communities  of 
crushing  indemnities — all  these  things  impress  Americans  as 
contrary  to  the  standards  of  modern  civilization.  The  ruin 
brought  upon  Louvain  can,  it  seems  to  us,  be  paralleled  in 
modern  history  only  by  the  destruction  of  Heidelberg  by  the 
troops  of  Louis  XIV.,  but  this  instance  of  French  barbarism  is 


The  European  War  467 

nearly  250  years  back  and  ought  assuredly  not  to  have  been 
imitated  in  this  twentieth  century. 

We  find  ground  also  for  indignation  at  the  use  of  vessels  of 
war  and  of  Zeppelins  for  the  killing  of  women  and  children 
and  other  unarmed  citizens  in  undefended  places.  Such  killing, 
which  has  nothing  whatsoever  to  do  with  the  direction  of  the 
work  of  campaigns,  can  only  be  classed  as  murder.  With  these 
views  I  cannot,  therefore,  at  this  time  at  least,  accept  the 
companionship  of  German-Americans  who  are  prepared  to 
approve,  defend,  or  excuse  these  actions. 

Americans  believe  further  that  it  is  only  through  the  decisive 
success  of  the  Allies  that  progress  can  be  made  toward  a  general 
disarmament,  through  which  the  peoples  of  the  world  can  be 
freed  from  unnecessary  burdens,  and  some  assurance  may  be 
secured  of  continued  peace.  The  success  of  Germany  would 
involve,  of  necessity,  renewal  of  war  in  the  near  future.  I 
have  in  my  hands  a  volume  prepared  by  a  member  of  the 
General  Staff  of  the  German  Army.  The  author  presents  plans 
for  the  invasion  and  the  domination  of  the  United  States  and 
contends  that  "Germany  is  the  only  great  power  which  is  in"a 
position  to  conquer  the  United  States."  This  little  book  con- 
stitutes one  further  contribution  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
Germany  of  today  is,  like  France  under  Napoleon,  aiming 
at  world  domination. 

Regretting  that  the  war  itself,  and  the  methods  with  which 
the  war  is  being  conducted,  should  have  brought  so  large  a 
cleavage  not  only  between  peoples  in  Europe,  but  between 
groups  of  citizens  on  this  side  who  have  been,  and  who  ought  to 
remain,  in  friendly  association,  I  am,  yours  respectfully. 

Heir   Dr.    HUGO   KIRBACH,   Secretary  German   University 
League,  225  Fifth  Avenue. 

GERMANY'S  TEMPER 

To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

You  may  think  it  of  interest  to  your  readers  to  bring  into 
print,  as  a  curious  example  of  the  state  of  German  feeling  and 


468  Appendix 

of  the  method  of  German  expression,  the  inclosed  anonymous 
communication  which  reaches  me  today  from  Germany,  and 
which  has  been  passed  (as  if  with  approval)  with  the  stamp  of 
the  German  censor.  This  utterance  probably  does  not  come 
from  a  member  of  the  educated  class,  but  the  spirit  of  it  seems 
to  me  not  very  different  from  that  of  old  Prof.  Lassen  whose 
letter  you  printed  in  The  Times  of  yesterday,  and  who  writes : 

"A  man  who  is  not  German  knows  nothing  of  Germany. 
We  are  morally  and  intellectually  superior  to  all — without 
peers.  It  is  the  same  with  our  organizations  and  our  institu- 
tions. .  .  .  We  are  truthful.  Our  characteristics  are  human- 
ity, gentleness,  conscience,  the  virtue  of  Christianity.  In  a 
world  of  wickedness,  we  represent  the  love  of  God,  who  is  with 
us." 

NEW  YORK,  Feb.  i,  1915. 

[Inclosure] 

To  G.  H.  PUTNAM,  Publisher,  New  York: 

The  hand  of  a  rascal  like  yourself,  which  could  dare  to  bring 
into  print  words  so  unworthy  of  the  great  German  people, 
should  rot  off.  The  statements  made  by  you  (as  reprinted  in 
the  Borsenblatt  from  The  New  York  Times)  could  spring  only 
out  of  a  withered,  English-feeling  blockhead.  May  God  punish 
England  and  may  you,  rascal,  answer  for  your  utterance. 
May  God  punish  her,  because  England  is  the  bloodhound  of 
this  war. 

THE  WAR  METHODS  OF  GERMANY 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  I  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter  of 
recent  date,  in  which  you  send  citations  from  a  report  rendered 
by  General  von  Bissing,  Military  Governor  of  Belgium,  in 
regard  to  conditions  in  that  country.  You  take  the  ground 
that  the  accounts  of  atrocities  committed  in  Belgium  and  in 
France  are  undoubtedly  largely  exaggerated,  and  have  in  any 
case,  in  large  part  at  least,  to  do  with  incidents  that  are  un- 
avoidable in  the  conduct  of  campaigns. 


The  European  War  469 

In  regard  to  the  several  matters  concerning  which  you  now 
raise  question,  I  reply  as  follows: 

1 .  The  evidence  upon  which  American  citizens,  like  myself, 
have  relied  in  regard  to  acts  and  conditions  in  Belgium  has 
been  secured,  first,  from  the  reports  of  the  orders  issued  to  and 
by  the  German  military  commanders,  and,  second,  from  the 
reports  of  responsible  Belgians  in  this  country  and  in  England. 
The  University  of  Oxford,  with  which  I  have  had  close  personal 
relations  for  many  years,  has,  as  you  know,  given  shelter  to  the 
refugee  professors  from  the  devastated  University  of  Louvain, 
while  the  town  of  Oxford  has  extended  hospitality  to  the  towns- 
people from  Louvain.    With  first-hand  statements  on  the  part 
of  these  refugees  and  with  the  series  of  German  orders  directing 
such  things  as  the  destruction  of  towns,  the  taking  of  hostages, 
the  execution  of  citizens,  the  appropriation  of  food  from  the 
stores  collected  at  Antwerp  and  elsewhere,  we  see  no  reason  to 
recall  or  to  modify  the  strictures  that  were  made  upon  the 
needless  brutality  that  accompanied  the  German  occupation 
of  Belgium. 

2.  When  Germany  decided,  contrary  to  its  own  plighted 
word,  that  it  was  "necessary"  to  put  to  one  side  the  neutrality 
of  Belgium  and  to  occupy  the  little  kingdom  as  a  tramping 
ground  for  the  march  of  invasion  to  France,  it  would  have  been 
natural  to  treat  with  exceptional  consideration  a  people  that 
had  been  brought  into  this  war  through  no  ambition,  no  aggres- 
sion, no  action  of  its  own.    In  place  of  such  consideration,  the 
army  of  invasion  and  the  commandants  who  were  placed  in 
charge  of  the  towns  and  districts  appear  to  have  been  imbued 
with  some  special  feeling  of  hatred  against  the  innocent  people 
who  had  been  wronged.    As  has  before  been  stated,  one  has  to 
go  back  a  couple  of  centuries  to.  find  in  such  an  act  as  the 
destruction  of  Heidelberg  by  the  ruffian  army  of  Louis  XIV. 
a  parallel  to  the  unnecessary  devastation  in  Belgium. 

3.  You  are,  of  course,  correct  in  the  contention  that  during 
every  war  reports  of  atrocities  are  always  exaggerated  and  are 
largely  invented.    It  is  necessary  in  making  criticisms  against 
one  set  of  combatants  or  another  to  be  careful  about  the  acts 
which  serve  as  the  text  for  criticism.    I  have  before  me  the 


47°  Appendix 

report  printed  some  weeks  back  in  Paris  by  a  commission  that 
had  been  appointed  to  examine  into  a  very  limited  group  of  the 
so-called  atrocities,  namely  those  that  were  committed,  or 
alleged  to  have  been  committed,  by  the  German  troops  in  that 
portion  of  France  temporarily  occupied  by  the  invaders,  and 
after  recovered  by  the  French  army.  These  districts  comprise 
but  five  per  cent,  of  the  entire  territory  of  the  Republic.  This 
record  is  devoted  in  the  main  to  the  misdeeds  and  unnecessary 
barbarities  committed  under  military  order.  I  have  also 
before  me  a  pamphlet  compiled  by  Professor  Bedier,  which  is 
based  in  large  part  upon  German  documents  and  letters, 
diaries  that  were  secured  from  prisoners  or  from  German 
soldiers  who  had  been  killed.  These  two  pamphlets  are  based 
not  upon  newspaper  gossip,  but  upon  records  carefully  vouched 
for.  They  make  together  a  very  sad  and  almost  impossible 
story  of  unnecessary  barbarity. 

4.  I  have  said  before  in  print  that  in  my  judgment  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  German  armies  comprised  as  good  material 
as  has  ever  been  put  into  the  field.     The  best  of  troops  will, 
however,  get  out  of  hand  at  times  unless  very  strictly  con- 
trolled; and  no  soldiers  can  avoid  being  demoralized  when 
they  are  making  devastation  and  are  committing  barbarities 
under  order. 

It  is  the  charge  against  the  German  operations  that  the 
ordinary  certainty  of  misery  that  follows  in  the  train  of  armies 
has  in  this  twentieth  century  been  unnecessarily  increased 
under  a  policy  of  impressing  upon  the  population  the  "fright- 
fulness"  of  the  German  power.  The  instructions  given  years 
back  by  the  Kaiser  to  his  soldiers  in  China  that  they  were  to 
act  as  Huns  so  that  the  name  of  Germany  should  be  remem- 
bered and  kept  in  dread,  has  been  confirmed  and  extended  in 
orders  of  German  commanders  in  France  and  in  Belgium.  It 
is  this  present  official  policy  and  not  the  original  German  char- 
acter that  forms  the  text  for  American  criticism. 

5.  Since  I  had  occasion  before  to  bring  into  print  an  ex- 
pression of  the  opinion  of  American  citizens  who  are  in  accord 
with  me  in  regard  to  the  barbarity  of  the  precedents  now  being 
made  in  this  twentieth  century  by  the  armies  of  Germany, 


The  European  War  471 

further  acts  have  been  done  which  can  only  give  fresh  force  and 
emphasis  to  the  term  "unnecessary  barbarity." 

Count  Zeppelin  was  reported  some  little  time  back  as  express- 
ing surprise  that  the  use  of  his  magnificent  invention  should 
have  been  characterized  as  barbarous.  The  Count  has,  of 
course,  had  no  share  or  responsibility  in  giving  the  orders 
under  which  the  Zeppelins  have  acted.  It  seemed  to  the 
Count  that  there  was  no  more  barbarity  in  dropping  bombs 
from  a  Zeppelin  than  in  throwing  shells  from  a  field  gun, 
and  in  this  contention  the  Count  is  justified.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  the  use  of  his  magnificent  invention  which,  of  necessity, 
involves  barbarity. 

If,  however,  a  battery  advancing  towards  a  battle  line 
should  stop  on  the  way  to  throw  shells  into  a  village  that  had 
no  relation  to  the  scene  of  combat  and  that  contained  no 
combatants,  the  commander  of  that  battery  would  be  stigma- 
tized as  using  with  futile  barbarity  the  power  in  his  hands.  It 
is  the  use  of  bombs  from  the  Zeppelins  for  the  killing  of  women 
and  children  in  undefended  places,  places  which  have  no 
possible  connection  with  the  management  of  a  campaign  and 
the  destruction  of  which  can  in  no  way  affect  the  results  of  a 
campaign,  that  is  characterized  as  "a  barbarous  act." 

The  use  of  the  submarines  for  the  destruction  of  vessels 
of  peace,  fishermen,  trawlers,  cargo  carriers,  trading  vessels, 
vessels  with  passengers,  women  and  children,  vessels  a  number 
of  which  are  not  even  the  property  of  the  nation  with  which 
Germany  is  at  war,  that  constitutes,  in  the  judgment  of 
American  citizens,  a  barbarous  and  abominable  precedent  in 
the  management  of  this  new  instrument  of  war.  Germany  has 
attempted  to  offset  this  killing  of  innocent  noncombatants,  a 
killing  that  has  been  characterized  as  murder,  by  criticism  of 
the  methods  initiated  by  Great  Britain  for  the  blockading  of 
the  German  coast.  It  is  true  that  certain  new  blockading 
methods  which  Great  Britain  is  putting  into  force  are  causing 
decided  inconvenience  to  neutral  states,  such  as,  for  instance, 
the  United  States  and  Holland,  and  that  it  is  in  order,  if  only 
to  avoid  confirming  by  silence  precedents  that  ought  not  to  be 
accepted  for  the  future,  to  make  protest  against  these  actions; 


472  Appendix 

but  there  can,  of  course,  be  no  possible  comparison  between 
acts  that  inconvenience  or  delay  trade,  and  which  are  accom- 
panied by  efforts  to  avoid  or  to  minimize  the  loss  to  shippers 
by  the  purchase  of  the  cargoes,  and  the  use  of  submarines  in  a 
manner  which  brings  to  large  numbers  of  non-combatants  not 
only  the  risk  but  the  certainty  of  death.  The  unarmed  people, 
men,  women,  and  children,  thus  destroyed  have  comprised  not 
only  citizens  of  the  nations  with  which  Germany  is  at  war,  but 
a  number  of  citizens  of  neutral  states. 

6.  In  a  recent  article  in  a  German  newspaper, — I  think  it 
was  the  Hamburger  Nachrichten, — the  writer  expresses  indigna- 
tion at  the  report  that  a  German  submarine  had  been  rammed 
by  a  British  trading  vessel.  He  takes  the  ground  that  the 
fighting  "should  be  restricted  to  the  armed  combatants,"  and 
that  any  interference  through  an  act  of  war  on  the  part  of  a 
citizen,  or  a  group  of  citizens,  was  piracy.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  the  naivet6  with  which  a  journalist  could  at  this 
time  have  brought  into  print  such  a  statement. 

Such  an  act  as  the  sinking  of  the  passenger  steamer  Falaba 
with  the  loss  of  over  100  lives  has  caused  horror  and  indigna- 
tion to  the  whole  civilized  world.  The  German  contention  that 
killing  of  this  kind  belongs  to  the  necessities  of  modern  warfare 
must  not  be  accepted  as  a  precedent.  The  power  to  capture 
does  not  carry  with  it  the  right  to  kill. 

It  is  the  contention  in  Germany  that  such  an  act  as  the 
sinking  of  the  Falaba  is  an  unavoidable  accident  of  modern 
warfare.  Such  things  seem  to  be  the  necessary  results  of 
present  German  methods  of  warfare,  but  it  is  these  methods 
that  are  condemned  as  abominable  not  only  by  the  antagonists 
of  Germany,  but  by  the  Americans  as  by  all  neutral  peoples. 
The  mere  fact  that  Germany  finds  them  convenient  will  not 
cause  them  to  be  accepted  as  international  precedents. 

The  Germans  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  have,  of  course,  a 
share  in  the  responsibility  for  such  misdeeds  only  in  so  far  as 
they  approve  and  defend  them. 

The  protest  of  the  neutral  states  (added  to  the  protest  of  the 
states  at  war)  should  be  made  with  persistence,  and  should,  if 
necessary,  be  sustained  with  force.  Germany  must  be  held 


The  European  War  473 

strictly  accountable  for  deeds  for  which  even  in  earlier  cen- 
turies of  warfare  there  are  no  precedents. 

Americans  are,  of  course,  in  accord  with  the  contention  that 
war  ought  to  be  restricted  to  the  armed  and  organized  com- 
batants, but  the  German  journalist  seems  to  forget  that  war 
as  conducted  in  this  twentieth  century  under  Prussian  leader- 
ship has  been  characterized  by  unnecessary  killing  of  unarmed 
noncombatants. 

It  is  difficult  to  find  any  ground  for  criticizing  a  trading 
vessel,  British  or  other,  which  being  threatened  with  destruc- 
tion by  a  submarine  acting  not  against  an  armed  enemy  but 
in  the  role  of  a  sea  pirate,  would  do  what  might  be  practicable 
to  put  that  submarine  out  of  commission.  One  might  as  well 
criticize  a  fisherman  for  attempting  to  destroy  a  shark. 

7.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  Germany  was  in  a  fair 
position  to  secure  for  its  contentions  the  support  of  a  large 
body  of  American  opinion.  During  the  past  six  months, 
Americans  have,  however,  had  placed  before  them  a  fairly 
comprehensive  record  of  the  documents  which  show  how  the 
war  was  brought  about.  They  learn  from  these  documents 
how  far  back  Germany's  preparations  had  been  made.  They 
learn  from  the  Italian  reports,  for  instance,  that  the  war  had 
been  planned  as  early  as  1912.  They  know  that  at  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  the  German  forces  were  in  readiness,  while 
those  of  France  and  Great  Britain  were  not.  They  know  that 
because  France  and  Britain  trusted  to  the  good  faith  of  Ger- 
many, they  were  not  in  a  position  at  the  time  of  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  to  defend  promptly  the  Belgians  whom  they  had 
sworn  to  protect.  Apart  from  this  evidence  of  the  responsibil- 
ity for  the  war,  they  have  now  before  them  the  six  months 
records  of  the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  this  record  has  made  it 
impossible  to  enlist  American  sympathy  in  support  of  the 
German  cause. 

Americans  are  in  fact  convinced  that  the  success  of  the  allies 
is  essential  for  an  assured  peace. 

A  Berlin  journalist  is  quoted  recently  as  saying  that  "the 
smaller  states  of  Europe  have  no  right  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  development  of  an  Empire  like  Germany. ' '  He  was  writing 


474  Appendix 

to  emphasize  the  necessity,  for  the  interests  and  "rights"  of 
Germany,  for  the  absorption  of  Belgium  and  of  Holland. 

American  influence  will,  however,  be  used  to  further  at  the 
close  of  the  war  a  settlement  which,  instead  of  destroying  the 
liberties  of  the  smaller  states,  shall  insure  their  continued  in- 
dependence and  protection.  Americans  will  propose  that  the 
peoples  of  territories  the  control  of  which  has  been  in  con- 
troversy, shall  be  accorded  the  right  to  decide  by  plebiscite 
their  national  affiliations.  It  is  our  hope  that  through  this 
recognition  of  the  right  of  the  peoples  to  select  their  own 
government,  the  risks  of  future  wars  may  be  removed.  The 
Hohenzollern  policy  of  military  domination  must  be  crushed, 
and  then  the  people  of  Germany  will  be  free  to  utilize  their 
patriotism,  their  exceptional  scientific  abilities,  and  their 
magnificent  powers  of  organization  for  a  legitimate  develop- 
ment of  the  resources  of  their  great  country. 

NEW  YORK,  April  19,  1915. 

OPPOSES  EMBARGO  ON  ARMS 

'*  George  Haven  Putnam,  the  publisher,  said  today," 
says  the  New  York  Evening  Post  of  May  — ,  1915,  "that 
he  had  received  a  letter  from  Paul  Blume  and  a  copy  of  a 
petition  to  President  Wilson  bearing  on  the  question  of  the 
shipment  of  arms  and  ammunition  to  belligerent  countries. 
In  a  statement  to  the  Evening  Post,  Mr.  Putnam  said  on 
the  subject: 

"  'It  is  important  that  good  citizens  who  are  interested  in 
checking  the  bloodshed  caused  by  the  war  should  not  per- 
mit themselves  to  be  confused  in  connection  with  an  under- 
taking initiated  by  German-American  citizens  and  which 
has  for  its  purpose  unneutral  action  in  aid  of  Germany.' 

"To  Mr.  Blume  a  reply  was  sent  by  Mr.  Putnam  as 
follows": 

I  return  without  my  signature  the  petition  to  the  President 
which  makes  request  for  an  embargo  on  the  export  of  arms 
and  ammunition. 


The  European  War  475 

I  am  fully  sympathetic  with  the  citizens  who  want  to  see  the 
war  brought  to  an  early  close.  I  think  that  still  more  impor- 
tant, however,  than  an  early  termination  of  the  war  is  a  settle- 
ment that  shall  insure  peace,  and  that  shall  take  away  the 
necessity  for  retaining  Europe  as  an  armed  camp. 

I  believe  that  such  settlement  can  be  secured  only  through 
the  defeat  of  Germany,  which  should  bring  to  a  close  the 
attempt  to  control  Europe  under  the  militarism  of  Berlin. 

I  believe  that  the  interference  at  this  time  with  war  condi- 
tions by  a  prohibition  of  the  sale  of  munitions  by  citizens  of 
the  United  States  would  serve,  not  to  hasten  the  close  of  the 
war,  but  to  prolong  the  contest.  I  believe,  also,  that  such 
action  on  the  part  of  our  government  would  itself  constitute 
a  direct  infringement  of  neutrality. 

It  would  also  be  inconsistent  with  precedents  that  have  been 
maintained  by  the  United  States,  by  Germany,  and  by  nations 
generally  in  regard  to  the  freedom  of  action  in  the  sale  of  war 
material.  If,  at  the  time  of  the  outbreak  of  this  war,  the 
contestants  had  divided  between  them  the  control  of  the  ocean, 
there  would  have  been  no  suggestion  for  the  prohibition  of  the 
sale  of  munitions  by  the  United  States.  If,  through  the  success 
of  one  belligerent,  the  fleets  of  the  other  have  been  swept  from 
the  seas,  such  changed  condition  can  not  affect  the  rightful 
policy  of  the  United  States.  All  nations,  whether  at  war  or 
at  peace,  are  free  to  make  purchase  of  munitions  in  the  United 
States.  It  is  not  the  responsibility  of  our  government  or  of 
our  citizens,  that  certain  nations  are,  under  the  fortunes  of 
war,  prevented  from  securing  the  delivery  of  such  munitions 
if  purchased. 

I  do  not  myself  believe  that  the  President  is  going  to  be 
influenced  to  unneutral,  inconsistent,  and  illegitimate  action 
by  petitions  such  as  that  now  proposed.  The  purpose  of  those 
who  have  planned  the  proposed  embargo  is  to  hinder  the 
operations  of  the  allies,  and  thus  give  aid  to  Germany.  Such 
an  interference  in  the  contest,  and,  in  fact,  any  change  made 
during  the  progress  of  the  war  in  the  regulations  controlling 
the  action  of  neutrals,  must  itself  constitute  a  breach  of 
neutrality. 


476  Appendix 

The  prohibition  of  the  export  of  munitions  would  not  restrict 
the  power  of  Germany  to  utilize  her  submarines  for  the  de- 
struction of  vessels  of  commerce  and  for  killing  of  unarmed 
citizens,  women,  and  children. 

The  "cause  of  humanity  and  justice"  cannot  be  furthered 
until  the  fighting  power  of  the  nation  that  carries  on  war  in  this 
fashion  shall  have  been  restricted. 

May  5, 1915. 

THE  "LUSITANIA" 
An  "Open  Letter"  to  Mr.  Wilson 

PRESIDENT  WILSON — SIR:  The  loyal  citizens  of  the  United 
States  are,  in  this  world's  crisis,  looking  to  their  President  to 
take  the  prompt  and  decisive  measures  required  to  maintain 
the  honour  and  the  dignity  of  our  country. 

They  want  to  feel  assured  that  the  United  States  will  fulfil 
the  obligations  that  belong  to  it  as  the  greatest  of  the  neutral 
nations. 

A  league  of  neutral  states  ought  now  to  be  constituted 
under  the  leadership  of  the  United  States,  and  this  league 
should  call  to  strict  account  the  nation  which  through  re- 
peated criminal  actions  has  placed  itself  outside  of  the  pale  of 
civilization. 

Germany  must  be  made  to  realize  that  the  power  to  capture 
does  not  and  cannot  carry  with  it  the  right  to  kill. 

Mr.  Ridder  reminds  us  this  morning  in  the  Staats-Zeitung 
that  due  notice  was  given  of  the  risk  to  be  incurred,  under 
present  war  conditions,  by  passengers  on  the  north  Atlantic. 
The  fact  that  the  German  Ambassador,  possessing  full  know- 
ledge of  the  barbarous  policy  of  his  Government  and  having 
possibly  also  been  informed  of  the  specific  plan  for  the  applica- 
tion of  such  policy,  saw  fit  to  caution  American  travellers  that 
there  was  risk  in  journeying  to  England  does  not  lessen  the 
responsibility  for  the  murder  of  these  travellers. 

Jack  the  Ripper  has  given  notice  that  he  proposes  to  con- 
tinue his  slaughter  of  the  innocents,  but  this  notice  will  hardly 
avail  to  save  him  from  the  usual  penalty  for  murder. 


The  European  War  477 

The  murderous  intent  of  the  assailants  of  the  Lusitania  is 
indicated  by  the  fact  that,  instead  of  simply  disabling  the 
vessel,  as  could  easily  have  been  accomplished  by  a  torpedo 
blow  forward,  which  would  have  given  opportunity  for  saving 
the  passengers  by  beaching  or  by  the  boats,  she  was  struck  in 
three  places  so  that  she  sank  in  a  few  minutes. 

It  was  evidently  the  purpose  to  bring  about  the  largest 
possible  loss  of  life. 

The  thoroughness  of  the  German  discipline  warrants  the 
conclusion  that,  as  was  the  case  with  the  burnings  and  shoot- 
ings in  Belgium,  not  only  the  attack  itself  but  the  method 
pursued  was  in  accord  with  specific  instructions  from  the 
Kaiser. 

American  citizens  have  the  right  to  depend  upon  their 
government  for  protection,  and  the  representatives  of  those 
Americans  who  have  been  murdered  look  to  the  President  and 
to  Congress  to  secure  due  redress. 

The  people  should  have  an  opportunity  of  expressing  them- 
selves through  their  representatives  in  Congress  assembled  at 
once  in  special  session. 

Suggestions  for  similar  action  on  the  part  of  the  other  neu- 
tral states  should  be  given  at  once  through  our  representatives 
in  Stockholm,  Christiania,  Copenhagen,  and  The  Hague. 

Americans  are  prepared  to  give  cordial  support  to  their 
government  in  wise,  firm,  and  courageous  action. 

NEW  YORK,  May  loth. 

WAR  AS  WE  MADE  IT 

To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

The  letters  of  Professor  Yandell  Henderson,  in  which  he 
undertakes  to  find  in  the  devastation  caused  during  the  Civil 
War  by  our  armies  in  the  South  a  parallel  to  the  actions  of  the 
Germans  in  Belgium,  France,  and  England,  give  one  an  un- 
favourable impression  of  the  capacity  of  the  Professor  for  his- 
torical research  or  for  accuracy  of  statement. 

He  appears  not  to  understand  that  the  indictment  that  has 
been  made  against  the  procedure  of  Germany  rests  chiefly, 


47$  Appendix 

although  by  no  means  exclusively,  on  the  things  done  under 
official  orders  and  in  accordance  with  the  avowed  policy  of 
impressing  and  dismaying  its  antagonists  with  the  "fright- 
fulness"  of  its  methods. 

The  charge  against  Germany  is  that,  in  the  deliberate  shoot- 
ing of  citizens,  in  the  use  of  Zeppelins  for  assaulting  undefended 
towns  of  no  military  importance,  and  by  the  action  of  sub- 
marines in  sinking,  without  warning  and  without  examination 
of  papers  or  of  "imaginary  armaments,  passenger  vessels,  she  is 
making  war  against  noncombatants  and  is,  with  deliberate 
purpose  and  with  no  possible  military  result,  slaying  women 
and  children. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  point  out  at  this  time,  when 
the  detailed  record  of  the  Civil  War  has  for  years  been  available 
for  all  readers,  including  even  professors,  that  the  order  books 
of  our  armies  contain  no  instructions  of  this  character,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  American  Government  had  no  such 
policy.  The  American  people  would  not  have  stood  for  any 
such  methods  in  1861  and  they  do  not  propose  to  condone 
them  now. 

I  was  with  the  troops  that  in  1862  occupied  New  Orleans; 
and  in  1864  I  was  with  Sheridan  in  Virginia.  During  the  last 
months  of  the  war  I  served  with  Sherman's  armies  in  North 
Carolina  and  later  as  post  adjutant  of  Savannah.  If  our 
commanders,  in  taking  possession  of  New  Orleans,  Winchester, 
Goldsboro,  or  Savannah,  had  deliberately  burned  great 
quarters  of  the  towns,  had  put  under  arrest  as  hostages  the 
mayors  and  groups  of  leading  citizens,  and  later,  on  the 
ground  of  straggling  shooting  by  people  in  the  town  or  in 
the  adjacent  districts,  had  executed  a  number  of  these  hostages, 
their  action  could  properly  have  been  paralleled  with  that  of 
the  German  commanders  at  Louvain,  Aerschot,  Termonde,  and 
other  Belgian  towns.  The  mere  reference  to  the  methods  under 
which  these  towns  in  the  South  were  occupied  shows  the  futility 
of  the  statement  that  American  troops  were  behaving  at  that 
time  as  the  German  armies  are  today.  I  myself  had  occasion, 
in  the  Valley  of  Virginia,  acting  under  instructions,  to  save 
houses  from  being  destroyed  when  the  adjacent  barns,  filled 


The  European  War  479 

with  forage,  were  burned ;  but  in  three  years  of  service  I  never 
knew  of  an  officer  being  called  upon  to  protect  a  woman  against 
mistreatment  by  our  soldiers. 

Professor  Henderson  has  had  the  opportunity  of  reading 
the  evidence  that  has  been  so  carefully  analyzed  and  so  tem- 
perately presented  in  the  official  report  by  the  commission  in 
Paris,  in  the  pamphlet  of  Bedier,  in  which  are  given  in  facsimile 
the  original  German  documents,  and  the  conclusive  summary 
of  deeds  that  can  be  classed  only  as  damnable,  which  has  been 
brought  together  by  the  committee  working  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Lord  Bryce,  a  man  whose  words  carry  weight  through- 
out the  world.  No  such  indictment  has  been  presented  against 
a  state  calling  itself  civilized  since  the  time  of  the  invasion  of 
the  Palatinate,  under  the  equally  barbarous  instructions  given 
by  Louis  XIV. 

An  American  holding  a  professor's  chair  in  one  of  our  great 
institutions  ought  not  to  permit  himself,  in  speaking  of  the 
devastation  of  the  Civil  War  as  comparable  with  these  deeds  in 
Belgium,  to  traduce  the  reputation  of  the  American  volunteer 
armies. 

June  4,  1915. 

FRIGHTFULNESS  TO  ORDER 

NEW  YORK,  June  9,  1915. 
To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

The  question  of  the  devastation  brought  about  during  our 
Civil  War  of  half  a  century  back  has  no  very  direct  pertinence 
in  connection  with  the  consideration  of  the  actions  committed 
during  the  present  war  by  Germany  in  Belgium,  France,  and 
England.  You  have  thought  it  desirable,  however,  to  give 
space  in  your  paper  of  this  morning  to  an  article  by  Mrs. 
McCulloch- Williams,  in  which  she  emphasizes  the  record  of 
our  American  "  frightfulness  in  war,"  and  makes  reference  to 
me  as  bringing  into  print  authoritative  statements  to  the  effect 
that  our  war  was  characterized  by  no  real  harshness.  You  may 
think  it  worth  while  to  bring  into  print  this  word  of  rejoinder. 

I  want  to  emphasize  in  reply  to  the  strictures  of  Mrs. 


480  Appendix 

Williams  the  difference  between  the  Federal  treatment  of  the 
Confederate  towns  occupied  by  them  and  that  accorded  by 
the  Germans  to  Louvain,  Aerschot,  Termonde,  and  other 
places  in  Belgium  and  in  France.  As  a  further  matter  for 
comparison,  I  may  point  out  that  if  one  of  our  batteries  had 
turned  aside  from  its  march  to  throw  shells  upon  undefended 
villages  for  the  purpose  of  killing  unarmed  citizens,  women,  and 
children,  the  action  would  have  been  parallel  to  that  of  the 
German  Zeppelins  in  England  and  of  the  German  submarines 
attacking  trawlers  and  passenger  vessels  in  the  Channel. 

In  such  mention  as  I  have  had  occasion  to  make  of  the  be- 
haviour of  our  Northern  troops  as  compared  with  that  of  the 
German  armies,  I  have  taken  pains  to  restrict  my  references 
to  the  things  that  were  done  officially  under  orders  and  in 
accord  with  some  general  policy.  No  great  army  can  pass 
through  the  territor}^  of  an  antagonist  without  the  commission 
of  misdeeds  by  individuals.  In  any  army  comprising  thousands 
of  soldiers  there  are  always  some  men  (constituting  but  a 
small  percentage  of  the  whole)  whose  brute  instincts  come  to 
the  front  if  opportunity  presents.  With  the  strictest  discipline, 
it  is  not  possible  to  prevent  the  misdeeds  by  some  of  these 
men  working  on  the  fringe  of  the  organized  forces.  This 
brings  a  heavy  burden  of  responsibility  upon  those  who  are 
willing  to  initiate  war,  whether  the  first  steps  be  taken  in 
Charleston  or  in  Berlin.  When,  however,  as  has  been  the 
case  with  the  German  troops  in  Belgium  and  in  France,  large 
misdeeds  are  committed  under  orders,  the  individual  ruffians  are 
then  too  ready  to  extend  these  misdeeds  on  their  own  account. 

What  I  had  emphasized  was  that  in  cities  and  towns 
throughout  the  Confederacy  in  which  I  had  had  personal 
experience,  and  sometimes  official  responsibility,  and  in  other 
towns  the  history  of  the  occupation  of  which  is  on  record,  life 
and  property  were  preserved  with  care.  No  American  com- 
mander thought  himself  justified  in  permitting  destruction  in 
cities  like  New  Orleans,  Charleston,  Winchester,  etc. ;  nor  was 
there  any  instance  of  an  attempt  to  impose  upon  these  cities, 
which  were  in  any  case  impoverished  by  the  necessary  opera- 
tions of  the  war,  crushing  indemnities.  After  our  occupation, 


The  European  War  481 

the  inhabitants  went  on  with  their  customary  work,  and  those 
who  were  in  need  came  to  our  commissaries  and  secured  rations. 
I  have,  as  acting  commissary,  myself  issued  such  rations. 

The  only  town,  as  far  as  I  can  find  record,  that  was  burned 
"under  orders  "  during  the  Civil  War  was  Chambersburg,  Penn. 
This  burning  was  done  by  Colonel  McCausland,  under  the 
orders  of  General  Early,  because  the  amount  of  an  indemnity 
demanded  had  not  been  paid  with  sufficient  promptness. 
This  was,  however,  an  isolated  and  exceptional  act.  It  was  the 
general  policy  of  both  armies,  as  is  made  clear  by  the  order- 
books,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  protect  the  towns  and  the 
inhabitants. 

THE  HONOUR  OF  OUR  WAR 

To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

I  am  inclosing  with  this  a  communication  from  my  old 
friend  and  commander,  Judge  Charles  C.  Nott,  who  rendered 
brilliant  service  in  the  West  as  a  Captain  of  cavalry  and  was 
later  Colonel  of  my  own  regiment,  the  One  Hundred  and 
Seventy-sixth  New  York  State  Volunteers.  He  gave  a  long 
term  of  service  (until  retired  by  age)  as  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Court  of  Claims  in  Washington.  He  is  now  over  85  years  of 
age,  and  on  the  ground  as  well  of  his  mature  years  as  of  his 
long  judicial  experience,  he  is  free  from  the  temptation  of 
thinking  or  writing  intemperately  or  injudiciously.  He  had,  I 
find,  been  very  seriously  concerned  that  The  New  York  Times 
should  have  given  space  to  statements  about  the  actions  of  our 
army  fifty  years  ago,  and  to  the  attempt  to  utilize  these  actions 
as  an  excuse  for  the  official  destruction  carried  on  by  German 
troops  in  Belgium  and  for  the  warfare  against  women  and 
children  on  the  part  of  German  submarines  and  Zeppelins. 

As  I  have  before  stated,  the  devastation  caused  in  the  South 
by  the  march  of  Sherman's  troops  has  no  proper  relation  to  the 
destruction  of  towns  in  Belgium  or  the  shooting  of  hostages  or 
the  killing  of  women  and  children.  The  honour  of  the  American 
army  is  something  to  be  treasured,  not  simply  by  the  veterans 
themselves,  but  by  all  American  citizens,  and  it  is  natural  for 
veterans  like  Judge  Nott  to  protest  against  the  attempt  that 
31 


482  Appendix 

has  been  made  to  put  American  commanders  on  a  par  with  the 
men  who  gave  commands  for  the  killing  and  destruction  in 
Belgium  and  in  England.    I  trust,  therefore,  that  you  will  make 
space  for  Judge  Nott's  communication. 
NEW  YORK,  June  29,  1915. 

[Indosure] 

DEAR  MAJOR  PUTNAM:  I  have  read  with  great  interest 
and  with  entire  approval  the  letters  that  you  have  recently 
brought  into  print  in  The  Times.  The  persons  who  justify  or 
excuse  or  attempt  to  mitigate  the  atrocities  committed  in 
1915  by  the  army  and  navy  of  Germany  by  reference  to  the 
conduct  of  the  Union  forces  during  our  Civil  War  deserve  a 
censure  which  I  do  not  now  care  even  to  express. 

My  range  of  service  during  the  war  was  somewhat  wider 
than  yours,  as  it  extended  from  Virginia  to  Texas.  I  can  say 
that  in  my  years  of  war  experience  I  never,  with  but  one 
exception,  saw  a  city,  town,  village,  or  hamlet  burned  by  the 
soldiers.  That  exception  was  Richmond,  which  was  fired  by 
the  Confederate  troops  at  the  time  of  their  evacuation  in 
April.  The  first  act  of  the  Union  army  on  entering  the  city 
was  to  help  its  citizens  to  subdue  the  fire.  The  Confederates 
abandoned  Richmond  on  the  night  of  April  2,  1865.  General 
Weitzel,  under  whom  you  and  I  served  in  Louisiana,  entered 
the  city  with  his  division  on  the  morning  of  April  $d.  When  I 
came  into  Richmond  on  the  5th  of  April  I  saw  the  still  smoking 
ruins,  and  I  heard  from  all  classes  of  citizens  the  facts  above 
narrated. 

In  my  own  two  volumes,  Sketches  of  the  War  in  the  West  and 
Sketches  of  Prison  Camps,  narratives  which  were,  as  you  know, 
written  at  the  time  while  the  war  was  still  in  progress,  I  have 
noted  many  instances  of  good-will  between  the  warring  Ameri- 
cans. That  those  Americans,  Northerners  or  Southerners, 
should  now  be  likened  to  these  ruthless  Germans  arouses  within 
me  an  indignation  which  it  is  very  hard  to  repress. 

C.  C.  NOTT, 
Late  Colonel  i?6th  N.  Y.  Vols. 

CRESCENT  BEACH,  June  26, 1915, 


The  European  War  483 

THE  STATE  OF  ANGLO-AMERICAN  FEELING 

A  letter  from  a  member  of  the  British  Government  to 
George  Haven  Putnam 

WESTHAMPTON  BEACH,  July  22,  1915. 
To  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times: 

I  have  received  from  a  correspondent  who  holds  high  office 
in  the  present  British  Administration,  in  reply  to  a  letter  of 
suggestion  of  my  own,  a  report  in  regard  to  certain  issues  now 
existing  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  issues 
which  have  made  trouble,  and  which  may  be  made  the  text  or 
the  pretext  for  serious  friction,  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain. 

I  belong  myself  to  the  group  of  those  who  consider  it  of  first 
importance  that  sympathetic  friendly  relations  should  be 
maintained  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  and 
believing,  as  I  do,  that  Great  Britain  and  her  allies  are  fighting 
in  the  cause  of  civilization,  I  am  anxious  that  the  United  States 
should  take  pains  to  minimize  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a 
successful  outcome  in  the  contest,  and  should  in  any  case  do 
nothing  that  might  serve  to  increase  those  difficulties.  I  can 
but  think  that  the  information  presented  by  my  English 
correspondent  is  of  importance  and  should  prove  of  service  in 
making  clear  the  nature  of  certain  of  the  cases  that  have  been 
utilized  to  bring  about  friction  and  difficulties. 

The  letter  is  personal,  and  I  am  not  permitted  to  use  in 
connection  with  it  the  name  of  its  distinguished  author,  but 
it  is  my  belief  that  he  could  not  object  to  having  the  informa- 
tion that  he  presents  utilized  to  further  this  all-important 
matter  of  international  relations. 

With  reference  to  one  expression  in  the  letter  of  my  corre- 
spondent, I  may  say  here  that  a  number  of  months  back  I 
suggested  that  our  Administration  ought  to  have  brought  into 
existence  a  league  of  neutral  nations,  of  which  the  United 
States  would  naturally  have  been  the  leader.  It  would  have 
been  the  duty  of  this  league  to  take  cognizance  from  time  to 
time  of  actions  by  any  of  the  combatants  which  impaired,  or 


484  Appendix 

seemed  likely  to  impair,  the  rights  of  neutrals,  and  to  place 
on  record  a  protest  against  such  actions.  Even  although  at  the 
time  there  might  have  been  available  no  naval  or  military 
power  with  which  to  enforce  such  protest,  the  protest  itself 
would  have  been  of  value  with  reference  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  rights  of  neutrals  in  future  similar  wars.  Such  a  league 
would,  I  am  confident,  have  proved  of  material  service  in 
placing  on  record  the  necessary  protests  against  the  serious 
breaches  of  neutrality  which  have  occurred  from  the  very 
beginning  of  the  war. 

The  fact  that  by  far  the  larger  portion  and  the  more  flagrant 
of  these  infringements  of  neutral  rights  has  been  on  the  part  of 
Germany  is  something  for  which  the  league  of  neutral  states 
would,  of  course,  have  had  no  kind  of  responsibility. 

[The  Letter] 

LONDON,  ENGLAND,  July  7,  1915. 

MY  DEAR  PUTNAM:  It  was  a  pleasure  to  get  your  letter. 
...  As  for  the  matters  of  policy  which  you  discuss,  I  need 
not  say  how  valuable  they  are  coming  from  yourself,  and  I  am 
sure  you  will  understand  that  anything  I  say  in  answer  is 
simply  due  to  my  desire  that  you  should  understand  how  some 
of  the  matters  to  which  you  refer  appear  to  us  over  here. 

While  I  held  the  office  of ,  I  had  considerable  experience 

of  American  claims  in  the  prize  court,  and  in  the  result  it  is  my 
clear  opinion  that  the  allegations  as  to  delay  in  proceedings, 
which  I  know  are  from  time  to  time  raised  by  American  claim- 
ants, have  no  real  foundation  in  fact.  It  has  happened  more 
than  once  that  when  everything  was  ready  it  was  the  American 
claimants  who  required  further  time,  and  not  unreasonably, 
since  they  had  to  communicate  with  America,  and  America 
again  might  have  to  communicate  with  other  countries  in 
order  to  obtain  all  the  proper  and  necessary  material  to  enable 
the  case  to  be  properly  and  finally  determined. 

Let  me  add  one  thing  more — and  here  again  I  feel  sure  you 
will  not  misunderstand  me — that  most  of  the  American  claims 
with  which  I  had  to  deal  did  not  impress  me  with  their  straight- 


The  European  War  485 

forwardness.  It  happened  more  than  once  that  Americans  who 
had  shipped  goods  to  Germans,  and  had  forwarded  to  the 
Germans  the  bills  of  lading,  and  all  the  commercial  documents, 
thereby  of  course  effecting  a  complete  transfer  of  the  property 
in  the  goods,  got  back  the  bills  from  the  German  consignees 
and  then  attempted  to  claim,  by  virtue  of  these  documents, 
to  be  the  owners  of  the  cargo. 

You  know  me  well  enough  to  know  that  I  am  not  so  unwise 
as  to  think  that  small  individual  cases  of  this  kind  represent 
the  national  attitude  or  national  conduct,  but  you  know  also 
that  it  is  precisely  the  class  of  man  who  puts  forward  such 
claims  who  is  the  loudest  in  complaint  of  the  procedure  by 
which  his  claims  have  been  defeated.  It  would  be  indeed  easy 
for  a  man,  without  telling  all  the  facts  which  I  have  given,  to 
declaim  indignantly  against  an  English  court  which  had 
refused  to  recognize  a  title  evidenced  by  bills  of  lading  in 
American  possession.  There  may  be  cases  not  before  me  in 
which  there  has  been  delay  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  sifting  the 
evidence  and  getting  the  matter  settled,  but  the  largest  cases 
which  have  given  rise  to  the  greatest  complaint  are  in  my  best 
and  impartial  judgment  cases  where  the  real  complaint  should 
have  lain  on  our  lips,  and  not  on  the  lips  of  the  American 
merchants. 

With  regard  to  the  national  attitude  toward  ourselves, 
excepting  speaking  privately  to  yourself  I  should  not  speak  at 
all;  but  if  I  tell  you  personally  what  we  feel  it  is  this — that 
although  there  is  abundant  evidence  of  sympathy  and  good- 
will for  our  cause,  yet  we  find  it  a  little  difficult  to  understand 
why  the  nation  did  not  speak  earlier  when  the  rights  of  liberty, 
that  must  be  dear  to  every  ear  that  answers  by  nature  to  the 
English  tongue,  were  being  ruthlessly  and  wantonly  trampled 
under  foot. 

It  may  be  that  the  infamy  and  the  perfidy  tnat  have  laid 
Belgium  waste  spoke  to  us  with  an  added  appeal  because  it 
meant  imminent  danger  to  ourselves.  That  cannot  be  over- 
looked. None  the  less  that  the  civilized  world  should  have 
stood  by  in  patience  and  silence  while  all  the  laws  of  civiliza- 
tion were  being  broken  is  a  thing  which  fills  us  here  with  some 


486  Appendix 

surprise.  I  repeat  again  that  you  and  the  very  large  section  of 
trustworthy  American  papers  did  do  and  would  do  all  that 
could  be  done;  but  I  think  we  did  hope  that  some  stern  repri- 
mand would  have  been  administered  by  the  nation  itself, 
speaking  through  official  organs,  when  Germany  defied  every 
rule  by  which  civilized  nations  are  bound  together.  We  are 
fighting  desperately  for  our  existence,  and,  of  course,  it  is  hard 
to  understand  how  other  people  are  entirely  unaffected  in 
such  a  struggle. 

(Signed)  


INDEX 


Abbey,  Edwin  A.,  125  ff. 

Abbott,  Evelyn,  197  ff. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  Jr.,  68  f., 

86 

Adams,  John  Couch,  220 
Adler,  Felix,  20,  345  ff. 
Alabama,  The,  in 
Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  24 
Aldrich-Payne  Tariff  Bill,  The,  5 
All  Souls'  College,  206  ff. 
American  Copyright  League,  The, 

371 
American     Publishers'     Copyright 

League,  The,  365  ff. 
Americans,  Claims  of,  against  Great 

Britain,  483  f. 
"Angell,  Norman,"  409  f. 
Angell's  Great  Illusion,  409  f. 
Anson,  Sir  William,  134  f.,  207 
Anthon,  Prof.  John,  301 
Appleton,  D.,  &  Co.,  94 
Appleton,  W.  H.,  368,  371 
Apponyi,  Count,  296  f. 
Armstrong,  Edward,  204 
Arnold,  Matthew,  262 
Arnoux,  Judge,  378  f. 
Arthur,  President  Chester  A., 86, 191 
"Attila,  The  Modern,"  440 
Australian  friends,  428  ff. 
Authors'  Society,  The,  (of  England), 

248  ff. 

Baldwin,  William  H.,  112  ff.,  339, 

345  ff-,  352 
Balliol  College,  196  ff. 
Baltimore  Convention  of  1912,  The, 

356  ff. 

Bancroft,  George,  432 
Baptist  Church,  The  First,  of  New 

York,  14 
Barclay,  Florence  L.,  408  f. 


Barclay's  The  Rosary,  408 

Barlow,  Gen.  Francis  C.,  178  f. 

Barnard  College,  232  f. 

Barnard,  Dr.  F.  A.  P.,  301 

Barrett,  Geo.  C.,  20 

Bazeilles,  The  burning  of,  443 

Beauregard,  Gen.  P.  G.  T.,  92 

Beck,  James  M.,  410  f. 

Beck's  The  Evidence  in  the  Case, 
410  f. 

Beckett  vs.  Donaldson,  131 

Bedford  Park,  240  f. 

Belgium,  Exhibit  of,  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, 457 

Bell,  George,  54 

Bell,  George,  &  Son,  51 

Bell,  W.  A.,  261,  291 

Bellows,  Henry  W.,  15 

Bentley,  George,  49 

Bentley,  Richard,  48 

Berne  Convention,  The,  155 

Bernhardi,  L.  von,  443 

Besant,  Walter,  248  ff. 

Bigelow,  John,  71  ff.,  log'ff. 

Birrell,  Augustine,  275,  389 

Bismarck,  Prince,  443 

Blackmore,  William,  257  ff. 

Elaine,  James  G.,  83,  95  ff. 

Elaine-Cleveland  Campaign  of  1884, 

95 

Bogue,  David,  51 
Bohn,  Henry  George,  51 
Bonaparte,  Charles  J.,  86 
Bookbinding  in  the  United  States,  6 
Books,  The  tariff  on,  44  ff.,  396  f. 
Borrow,  George,  53 
Bowdoin  College,  303  f. 
Bowker,  R.  R.,  40  f.,  171,  182,  375 
Breckenridge,  W.  C.  P..  377 
Bribery  and  Corruption  Act,  The, 
282 


487 


488 


Index 


British  authors,  Testimonial  from, 

394  f- 

British  Orders  in  Council,  484  f. 
Brockhaus,  Albert,  398 
Browne,  Albert  G.,  183 
Browne,  Edward  G.,  220,  223 
Browning,  Oscar,  229  f. 
Brunetiere,  Ferdinand,  402  f. 
Bryan,  W.  J.,  35« 
Bryant,  Wm.  C.,  2, 40,  370, 432 
Bryce,  James,  264 
Buckmaster,  Stanley  O.,  283 
Buckner,  General  S.  B.,  420,  422 
Buddhist  M.  P.,  A,  285  f. 
Bureau  of  Municipal  Research,  344 
Burrage,  Henry  S.,  119 
Butler,  Nicholas  Murray,  303 
Buxton,  Sidney,  389 

"Cadet"  Company,  The,  347  f. 
Cambridge     History     of     English 

Literature,  235 
Cambridge    History    of    American 

Literature,  236 

Cambridge,  University  of,  220  ff . 
Carnegie,  Andrew,  122  ff.,  305, 
Carter,  James  C.f  337  f. 
Gary,  Edward,  II,  432 
Castle    Thunder    (in    Richmond), 

294 
Censorship  of  the  Church,  History  of 

the,    by  G.  H.  Putnam,  412  f. 
Century  Club,  The,  72,  112,  262, 

431  ff. 

Chace,  Jonathan,  371 
Chamberlain,  Joseph,  222  f. 
Chambersburg,  The  burning  of,  481 
Chase,  Salmon  P.,  9 
Chatto  &  Windus,  249 
Chawner,  Dr.  William,  227  f. 
Chesney,  Sir  George,  65 
Chicago  Convention  of  1880,  189 
Choate,  Joseph  H.,  127  ff.,  432 
Christchurch  College,  209  f. 
Christ's  College,  230  f. 
Church,  Alfred  C.,  193,  203 
Church,  Col.  Samuel  H.,  306 
Cincinnati,  The  Society  of  the,  306 
City  Club,  The,  333  ff. 
Citizens'  service  for  the  public,  165 
Citizens'  Union,  The,  339  ff. 
Civil  Service  Act  of  1877, 173 
Civil   Service  Reform   Committee, 

The,  173  ff.,  181  f. 
Civil  War  methods,  480  ff . 
Clarendon  Press,  The,  266 
Clark,  Champ,  359  ff. 


Cleveland,  Grover,  95  f.,  98  ff.,  358, 

372  f. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  Mrs.,  99  f.,  372 
Clique,  The  (quoted),  442 
Clodd,  Edward,  268  f. 
Clovelly,  237  f. 
Cobden  Club,  The,  40  ff. 
College  course,  Advantage  of  a,  2 
Collins,  Charles,  1 1 
Colorado,  Copyright  work  in,  373 
Colorado    Springs,    A    sojourn    in, 

286  ff. 

Columbia  College,  300  f . 
Committee  of  Fifteen,  The,  115  ff., 

344  ff- 

Committee  of  Fourteen,  The,  351  ff. 

Congregation  (of  Oxford  Univer- 
sity), 215 

Congregational  Club,  The,  381 

Congress  and  Copyright,  398  ff . 

Convention,  The  Baltimore,  of  1912, 
356  ff. 

Convocation  (of  Oxford  University), 
216 

Conway,  Moncure  D.,  241 

Cooke,  Jay,  &  Co.,  104 

Copyright  Association,  The  First 
American,  45  ff. 

Copyright,  The  British  Commis- 
sion of  1879,  389 

Copyright,  The  British  Act  of  1911, 
389  ff. 

Copyright  League,  The,  365  f.,  392 

Copyright,  Legislation  on,  382  ff. 

Copyright,  Statute  of  1891,  379  ff.; 
Statute  of  1909,  384  ff. 

Cornell,  Alonzo  B.,  87,  174,  181 

Crawfurd,  Oswald,  66 

Culbertson,  Judge,  378  f. 

Cunningham,  Dean  Wm.,  225 

Curtis,  Gen.  Newton  M.,  173  f. 

Curtis,  Geo.  Wm.,  9  ff.,  97 

Curzon,  Lord,  272 

Cutting,  R.  Fulton,  338  f. 

Darling  Suit,  The,  78 

Darwin,  Sir  Francis,  230  f. 

Darwin,  Sir  George,  230 

Darwin,  Horace,  231 

Daudet's  The  Siege  of  Berlin,  329, 

427 

Daudet's  Sappho,  331  f. 
Davis,  Jefferson,  91  ff. 
Davis,  H.  W.  C.,  198 
Delane,  John,  261 
Dickens,  Charles,  23 
Dickinson,  G.  Lowes,  230 


Index 


489 


Dingley  Tariff  Bill,  5 

District    Attorney,    Conflict    with 

the,  319  ft. 

Dix,  Governor  John  A.,  362 
Dollinger,  Dr.  J.  I.,  63 
Dorking,  The  Battle  of,  65  f. 
Dorsheimer,  Wm.,  369  f. 
Downing  College,  225 
Draper,  General  William  F.,  390  f. 
Dugdale,  Richard,  171  ff. 
Dutton,  E.  P.  &  Co.,  134 

Eaton,  Dorman  B.,  n 

Echo  Club,  The,  25 

Economic  Club,  The  (of  London), 

283  f. 

Edelsheim,  Freiherr  von,  437  f. 
Eggleston,  Edward,  371  ff. 
Emmanuel  College,  227 
Empire    State    Democracy,     The, 

363  f- 

England  and  Germany,  436  f. 
European  War,  The,  of    1914-15, 

435 

Evening  Post,  The,  128 
Export  of  Munitions,  The,  454 

Falaba,  The  sinking  of  the,  472 

Farrer,  Sir  Thomas,  256 

Fathers  of  the  Republic,  Writings 

of  the,  67 

Ferrero,  Guglielmo,  412,  413,  415  f. 
Firth,  Prof.  Chas.,  208 
Fisher,  H.  A.  L.,  214  f. 
Fiske,  John,  242  f. 
Fitzgerald,  Edward,  269 
Florida,     Contested     election     in, 

178 

Floyd,  John  B.,  420,  422 
Forbes,  John  M.,  184  f. 
Ford,  Paul,  72 
Ford,  Worthington  C.,  72 
Fort  Donelson,  Capture  of,  418  f. 
Fort  Henry,  Capture  of,  419 
Fowler,  W.  Warde,  203 
Frankfort,  The  Book  Fair  of,  401  f. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  72 
Franklin's  Autobiography,  inf. 
Franklin,  Wm.  Temple,  68 
Freeman,  Edward  A.,  261  ff. 
Free  Trade  Club,  The,  42  f. 
Free  Trade  League,  The,  40  f. 
Fre'mont,  John  C.,  13 
Frothingham,  Nathaniel,  16 
Frothingham,  Octavius  B.,  16  ff. 
Fuller,  Anna,  411  f. 
Funk,  Isaac  K.,  129  ff. 


Garfield,  President,  89,  191 
Garrison,  Fanny,  105  f. 
Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  105  f. 
George,  Henry,  38,  343  f. 
German  Propaganda,  465 
German    University    League    (of 

New  York),  465 

Germans  in  Belgium,  The,  446  f. 
Germany  and  England,  66,  436  f. 
Germany,  Methods  of,  469  ff. 
Germany,  War  Policy  of,  439  f. 
Gerrans,  Henry  T.,  195 
Gilder,  Richard  Watson,  375  f. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  283  f. 
Godkin,  E.  L.,  n,  83,  128  ff.,  175  ff. 
Godwin,  Parke,  12  f. 
Goethals,  Col.  G.  W.,  302 
Gold,  Premium  on,  5 
Good  Government  Clubs,  The,  334 
Goodale  Sisters,  The,  65 
Gordon,  Gen.  J.  B.,  178 
Goschen,  Baron,  388 
Grand  Jury,  Work  on  the,  310  ff. 
Grant,  General   U.  S.,  188,  418 
Grant  &  Ward,  313  f. 
Great     Britain     and     the     United 

States,  483  f. 
Greeley,  Horace,  24 
Green,  Anna  Katharine,  73  ff. 
Green,  George  Walton,  371 
Gulliver,  William  C.,  333 

Hamilton,  John  C.,  68 
Hardy,  Thomas,  269 
Harmon,  Governor,  359 
Harper  &  Bros.,  367  f. 
Harrison,  Mary  Kingsley,  238  f. 
Harrison,  President,  141  f. 
Hart,  James  Morgan,  24  f. 
Hawley,  Senator,  371 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  31 
Hayes,  President,  82,  173,  177  f. 
Hearst's  Independence  League,  344 
Henderson,  Yandell,  477  f. 
Heroes  of  the  Nations,  405 
Hervey,  Lord  Arthur,  266 
Hewitt,  Abram  S.,  416,  417 
Hibben,  John  G.,  302 
Hiersemann,  Karl  W.,  460  f. 
Hinrichs,  F.  W.,  363 
Holt,  Henry,  242 

Honest  Money,  The  fight  for,  357 
Howe,  Walter,  287 
Howland,  Henry  E.,  432 
Hubbard,  Elbert,  126 
Hubbard,  Gen.  Thomas  H.,  304 
Hughes,  Charles  E.,  147 


490 


Index 


Hugo,  Victor,  264 
Hunt,  Richard  M.,  27 
Huntington,  Bishop  Frederick  D., 

15 

Huntington,  Daniel,  432 
Hurd  &  Houghton,  2 
Hyacinthe,  Father,  62  f. 
Hyde,  Gen.  Thomas  W.,  298 
Hyde,  Prest.  William  DeWitt,  304 

Immigration,    Effect    of,  on    New 

York  City,  168  f. 
Indianapolis  Convention,  The,  358 
International      Copyright,      First 

efforts  for,  45  ff. 
International  Publishing,  405 
International  Science  Series,  405 
International  Series,  404  ff. 
Irving,  Washington,  52,  75 
Irving's  Works,  The  protection  of, 

.    /75 

Ito,  Prince,  156  f. 
Iwakura,  Prince,  156  f. 
lyenaga,  T.,  163 

Jackson,  President,  146 
Jacobi,  Abraham,  28,  86 
James,  Colonel  E.  C.,  130  ff. 
Japan,     Copyright    relations    of, 

155  *• 

Japan  Society  of  America,  The,  163 

Jastrow,  Joseph,  Jr.,  455  f. 

Johnson  Club,  The,  274  f. 

Johnson,  Oliver,  24 
ohnson,  President,  3 
ohnson,  Robert  W.,  371  f. 
ohnston,  Albert  Sidney,  92 
ohnston,  Joseph  E.,  92 
owett,  Dr.  Benjamin,  196 
usserand,  J.  J.,  427  ff.,  431 
usserand,  Madame,  430  f. 

Kaneko,  Baron,  161  f. 
Kearsarge,  The,  ill 
Kelly,  Edmond,  333  ff. 
Kelly,  John,  121, 181 
King,  Dr.  Charles,  301 
King's  College  (Cambridge),  229  f. 
Kinkel,  Professor,  80  f . 
Kirbach,  Hugo,  465  f. 
Kitchener,  Lord,  271 
Knickerbocker  Press,  The,  62 
Kossuth,  Louis,  295  f. 
Kriegspiel  (in  Oxford),  215  f. 

Lane,  Ralph,  409  f. 
Lassen,  Prof,  von,  468 


Layard,  Sir  Henry,  53 

Leadville,  An  experience  in,  288  f. 

Leavenworth  Case,  The,  73  f. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  402 

Lee,  Sidney,  50 

Lexow  Committee,  The,  354 

Lhuys,  Drouyn  de,  in 

Lieber,  Francis,  9,  370 

Lilly,  W.  S.,  261 

Lincoln  College,  203 

Lincoln,  President,  2,  418  f. 

Lincoln,  Life  of,  by  G.  H.  Putnam, 

413 

Litchfield,  A  visit  to,  275 
Littell's  Living  Age,  69  f. 
Lodge,  Senator  H.  C.,  68,  381,  396 
Loring,  George  B.,  88 
Low,  Sampson,  55 
Lowell,  Mrs.  C.  R.,  371 
Loyal  Legion,  The,  306  f. 
Lusitania,  sinking  of  the,  476  f . 
Macdonough,  A.  R.,  432 
Macmillan,  Alexander,  89 
MacMullen,  John,  136 
McAneny,  George,  337  f.,  364 
McCausland,  Col.  481 
McClurg,  A.  C.,  372 
McKinley,  President,  144,  358 
Magrath,  Dr.  J.  R.,  204 
Maitland,  Prof.  F.  W.,  215,  226  f. 
Mallock,  W.  H.,  279  f. 
Mann,  Horace,  31 
Marine  Bank,  The,  313  f. 
Matheson,  Dean  P.  E.,  214 
Meredith,  George,  261 
Miles,  Gen.  Nelson  A.,  297  f. 
Millar  vs.  Taylor,  132 
Modernists,  The,  64 
Monkswell,  Baron,  389 
Monro,  Provost  D.B.,  264 
Monroe,  Robert  Grier,  346 
Mori,  Arinori,  159  ff. 
Morphy,  Paul,  30  f. 
Morrill,  Justin  S.,  70  f.,  369 
Morris,  William,  217 
Morse,  James  Herbert,  21 
Mugwumpery,  187  ff. 
Municipal  Operation,  341  f. 
Munitions,  Export  of,  454,  475 
Murray,  John  (the  Second),  52 
Murray,  John  (the  Third),  53 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  443 
Napoleon,  Louis,  no  f. 
National  Defence,  450  ff. 
National  Dictionary  of  Biography, 
260 


Index 


491 


National  Security  League,  450  ff. 

Neil,  R.  A.,  220 

Nethersole,  Olga,  328  £.,331 

New  College,  214 

New  Year's  calls,  22 

New  York  City,  The  Government 

of,  167  ff.,  343  ff. 
New  York  in  the  Sixties,  I  ff. 
Nitobe,  Inazo,  162  f. 
Northern  Pacific  Railroad,  104  £. 
Nott,  Chas.  C.,  481  £. 

Olin,  Stephen  H.,  355 
Oman,  C.  W.  C.,  206,  218 
Oriel  College,  264 
Orr,  Alexander  E.,  346 
Osborne,  Thomas  M.,  360  ff. 
Osborne,  Wm.  McKinley,  298  f. 
Osgood,  Dr.  Samuel,  15 
Oxford  Jurists'  Club,  134 
Oxford,  Reminiscences  of,  192  ff. 

Paddock,  Rev.  Dr.  345 

Palm,  The  Publisher,  443 

Palmer    and     Buckner     platform, 

The,  358 

Palmer,  Gen.  W.  G.,  292  f. 
Panic  of  1873,  6l 
Paraguay,  Revolution  in,  33 
Paris  in  1867  and  in  1870,  425  f. 
Parker,  James,  193 
Parker,  Theodore,  17 
Peabody,  George  Foster,  345,  458 
Peabody  sisters,  The,  31  ff. 
Pearsall-Smith,  Logan,  214 
Peckham,  Wheeler  H.,  326,  337  f. 
Pembroke     College     (Cambridge), 

220  ff. 

Perry,  Commodore  Matthew,  154 
Peters,  John  P.,  351  ff. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  106 
Piatt,  Donn,  94 
Pidgeon,  Daniel,  277  f. 
Pike's  Peak,  A  climb  up,  291  f. 
Pittsburgh,  University  of,  305 
Platt,  Senator  O.  H.,  381 
Political  Education,  The  Society  for, 

171  ff. 

Pollard  &  Moss,  76  f. 
Porter,  Gen.  Horace,  297 
Powell,  F.  Yorke,  193,  209,  241 
Predatory  Price-Cutting,  397  ff. 
Presidential  Convention  of  1856,  13 
Presidential  Convention  of  1860,  13 
Prime,  William  C.,  370 
Protection,  The  policy  of,  36  ff.,  357 
Pryor,  Roger  A.,  118 


Public   Utilities,    Management   of, 

34i  *• 

Publishers,  International  Associa- 
tion of,  399  ff. 

Publishers  of  London,  44  ff. 

Pumpelly,  Raphael,  108 

Putnam,  General  Israel,  418 

Putnam,  G.  P.,  3,  60,  365  ff. 

Putnam,  G.  P.,  and  Work  for 
Copyright,  45  ff. 

Putnam,  G.  P.,  &  Son,  3 

Putnam's  Sons,  G.  P.,  60 

Putnam,  John  Bishop,  62 

Putnam,  Kingman  N.,  97 

Putnam,  Mary  C.,  28,  425 

Putnam's  American  Facts,  365  f. 

Putnam's  Authors  and  Their  Public 
in  Ancient  Times,  414 

Putnam's  Books  and  Their  Makers, 
414 

Putnam's  Censorship  of  the  Church, 

415 

Putnam's  Gingerbread  Man,  415 
Putnam's  Life  of  Lincoln,  415 
Putnam's  Monthly,  13 
Putnam's  Science  Series,  405 

Queen's  College,  203  f. 

Raines  Law  Hotels,  The,  351  ff. 
Ramsay,  Miss,  224 
Rashdell,,Dr.  Hastings,  214 
Rdclus,  Elie  and  Elis<§e,  425 
Reddaway,  W.  F.,  230 
Reed,  Myrtle,  406  ff. 
Revolution  of  '48,  169 
Rhodes  Scholarships,  The,  205  f. 
Rice,  James,  248 
Ridder,  Hermann,  476 
Robertson,  C.  Grant,  207 
Robinson,  Lucius,  181 
Rogers,  J.  E.  Thorold,  193  f. 
Roosevelt,  Franklin  D.,  360  f. 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,  136  ff.,  327, 

354,  359,  4i6 
Root,  Elihu,  338  f. 
Russell,  Lindsay,  163  f. 
Russians,  The,  in  Galicia,  445 

Sanitary  Commission,  The,  15 
Savile  Club,  The,  246  f. 
Sayre,  Prof.  A.  H.,  204 
Schieffelin,  W.  J.,  338  f.,  344 
Schurz,  Carl,  n,  29  f,  80  ff.,  97, 

102,  179  f. 

Scott,  Thomas,  A.,  419,  421 
Scratchers,  The  Young,  177  ff. 


492 


Index 


Scribner,  Charles,  372 
Seccombe,  Thomas,  275 
Seligman,  E.  R.  A.,  345 
Seligman,  Isaac  Newton,  352 
Shepard,  Edward  M.,  171 
Shepard,  Rebecca,  26,  105 
Sherman,  John,  180 
Sherman's  Armies,  Behaviour  of,  478 
Sheridan's  Army,  Behaviour  of,  478 
Siam,  Second  King  of,  48 
Sicily,  History  of,  by  Freeman,  2">6 
Sime,  James,  241  f. 
Simko witch,  Mrs.  V.,  352 
Single  Taxers,  The,  343 
Slade,  Francis  L.,  352 
Smith,  A.  L.,  197,  214 
Smith,  Chas.  Stewart,  343 
Smith,  Elder,  &  Co.,  49  f.,  260 
Smith,  Emily  James,  332  f. 

Smith,  George,  49  ff. 

Smith,  J.  A.,  197,  214 

South  America,  Revolutions  in,  32 

Sparks,  Jared,  67 

Spencer,  Herbert,  57 

Spencer,  Nelson  S.,  337  f. 

Staats-Zeitung,  The,  476 

Stan  ton,  Edwin  D.,  120,  424  f. 

Stedman,  Edmund  C.,  20,  370 

Stephen,  Leslie,  50,  260  f. 

Stetson,  Frances  L.,  100 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  246  f. 

Stewart,  A.  T.,  3 

Stoddard,  R.  H.,  24 

Stokes,  Anson  Phelps,  40 

Storey,  Moorfield,  69  f. 

Story   of  the    Nations   Series,    266, 

4°5 
Strachan- Davidson,  J.  L.,  196  ff. 

Strong,  Charles  H.,  337  f. 
Sulzer,  Wm.,  362 
Sumner,  W.  G.f  42 
Swift,  Ann,  23 

Taine,  Hippolyte,  264  f. 
Talfourd  Copyright  Bill,  271 
Tammany  Hall,  334  ff.,  347 
Tammany  libel  suit,  A,  353  ff. 
Tariff  policies  of  the  United  States 

36  ff. 

Taxation  of  the  Civil  War,  4  ff . 
Taylor,  Bayard,  24 
Taylor,  Henry  O.,  432 
Temple,  Sir  Richard,  280 
Thiemes,  R.  F.,  444 
Thierry,  J.  N.  A.,  265 
Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  112,  177  f.,  186 
Times,  The  New  York,  353 


romati,  Consul,  158 

Treitschke,  H.  von,  443,  454  ff. 

Trenton,  The  battle  of,  270  f. 
Trevelyan,  George  Macaulay,  224  f. 
Trevelyan,  Sir  George  O.,  270  f. 
Tribune,  The  New  York,  107 
Trinity  College  (Cambridge),  223  f. 
Tweed  Ring,  The,  170  f.,  334 
Tyrrell,  Father,  62  ff. 

Uchida,  Consul,  158  f. 
Underwood,  Oscar  A.,  302,  359  f., 

397 
Unwin,  T.  Fisher,  275 

Van  Amringe,  John  H.,  301 
Van  Dyke,  Henry,  375  f.,  380  f. 
Van  Ingen,  Edward  H.,  40  ff. 
Van  Voorst,  Judge,  77 
Verplanck,  Gulian  C.,  432 
Vigfusson,  Gudbrand,  213 
Villard,  Henry,  104  ff. 

Waldstein,  Dr.  Charles,  229 
Walker,  J.  Bernard,  67 
Waller,  A.  R.,  235 
Wanamaker,  John,  141 
Ward,  Ferdinand,  314  f. 
Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  225 
Ward,  T.  Adolphus,  235 
Ward,  William  L.,  147  f. 
Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  73 
Washburn,  Dr.,  15 
Wells,  David  A.,  35  ff.,  357 
Whale,  George,  275 
Wheeler,  Everett  P.,  n 
Whibley,  Leonard,  220 
White,  Chief  Justice,  302  f. 
White,  Horace,  40  f.,  176  f- 
Whitin,  Frederick  H.,  352 
Whitridge,  Frederick  W.,  182 
Wilkinson,  Spencer,  206 
Willert,  Paul  F.,  193 
William  II.,  Emperor,  443  f. 
Williams,  Geoffrey,  57 
Williams,  Sidney,  56  f. 
Williams,  Mrs.  McCulloch,  479 
Wilson  Tariff,  5 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  359  ff.,  476  f . 
Worcester  College,  Oxford,  192  it. 
Worcester  County,  Campaigning  in, 

277  *• 

Youmans,  E.  L.,  405 
Young  Scratchers,  The,  177  5- 


^  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 


Complete  Catalogues  sent 
on  application 


Memories  of  My  Youth 

1844-1865 
By  George  Haven  Putnam 

Late  Brevet-Major,  176th  Reg't,  N.  Y.  S.  Vols. 

Author  of    "Memoir  of  G.  P.  Putnam,"  "Life  of  Lincoln,"   "A 
Prisoner  of  War  in  Virginia,"  "  Books  and  Their  Makers,"  etc. 

8°,    With  Portraits.    $2,00 

Mr.  Putnam's  Memories  include  a  record  of 
sojourns  in  England  in  1844,  in  1851,  and  in  1860; 
experiences  as  a  student  in  the  University  of 
Paris,  in  Berlin,  and  in  Gottingen;  and  a  record 
of  service  during  the  strenuous  years  of  the  Civil 
War,  extending  from  September,  1862,  to  Sep- 
tember, 1865.  This  service  covered  campaigns 
in  Louisiana  (including  the  Red  River  Expedition 
and  work  in  the  completing  of  Colonel  Bailey's 
Dam),  the  campaign  with  Sheridan  in  the  Valley 
of  the  Shenandoah,  the  decisive  action  at  Cedar 
Creek.  The  volume  includes  also  a  record  of 
experiences  in  Libby  and  Danville  prisons  during 
the  last  year  of  the  War.  A  supplementary 
chapter  gives  a  brief  account  of  service  in  main- 
taining order  in  Savannah  after  the  close  of  the 
War  but  before  the  re-establishment  of  civil 
government. 

New  York     G.  P.  Putnam's  SonS        London 


George  Palmer   Putnam 

Together  with  an  Account  of  the  Earlier  Years  of  the  Publishing 
House  Founded  by  Him 

Octavo.      With  Frontispiece  in  Photogravure.     Net,  $250.     By  mail,  $2.70 

This  volume  presents  a  record  of  the  career  of  a  representative 
American  publisher  and  is  submitted  also  as  a  contribution  to  the 
history  of  American  Literature  and  of  international  literary  relations. 
One  chapter  is  devoted  to  a  record  of  Mr.  Putnam's  work  in  behalf  of 
international  copyright  work  that  was  begun  as  far  back  as  1837, 
in  which  year  was  organized  the  first  of  the  long  series  of  copyright 
committees.  From  that  date  until  his  death  in  1872,  Mr.  Putnam 
was  the  Secretary,  and  as  a  rule,  the  working  man,  in  the  Executive 
Committee  of  each  successive  copyright  association.  The  narrative 
includes  reminiscences  of  life  in  London  in  the  early  forties,  and 
references  to  men  of  letters  and  other  persons  of  distinction  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Among  the  people  with  whom  Mr.  Putnam  had 
personal  relations  may  be  mentioned  Louis  Napoleon,  Washington 
Irving,  Bayard  Taylor,  Fenimore  Cooper,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne, 
Charles  Sumner,  Sargeant  Talfourd,  Elisee  Re"clus,  Fredrika  Bremer, 
Susan  Warner,  Longfellow,  Holmes,  Dana,  Emerson,  Curtis,  the 
alleged  Dauphin  (Louis  XVII),  Commodore  Perry,  Bryant,  Lincoln, 
and  many  other  noteworthy  characters  of  generations  that  have 
passed. 

A  Selection  from  a  long  Series  of  Reviews: 

George  Palmer  Putnam  was  a  man  of  such  lovable  character  that  the  memory  of 
him  glows  with  personal  affection  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  had  the  privilege  of 
knowing  him,  and  his  name  should  ever  remain  a  tradition  and  an  influence  for 
good  in  the  calling  of  publishing  and  of  bookselling.  The  Memoir  which  has  been 
prepared  with  filial  affection  by  his  eldest  son  is  worthy  of  both,  for  the  son  has 
succeeded  to  the  father  not  only  as  the  head  of  the  publishing  house,  but  in  many 
good  causes,  notably  that  of  international  copyright,  in  which  the  elder  Putnam,  a 
man  of  wide  vision  and  far  foresight,  was  a  pioneer  and  a  leader. — R.  R.  BOWEER, 
Publishers'  Weekly. 

This  Memoir  of  a  man  who  left  a  notable  impression  on  the  life  of  New  York 
and  the  history  of  literature  in  this  country  includes  so  much  valuable  and  interesting 
material  as  to  prove  an  embarrassment  of  riches  for  the  reviewer  who  is  limited  as 
to  space.  The  personal  life  and  character  of  the  man  himself  possess  distinctive 
value.  His  Biography  shows  him  to  have  been  large-minded,  modest,  executive. 
His  public  spirit,  his  intellectual  integrity,  and  his  lovable  confidence  in  others  are 
traits  that  shine  out  from  the  narrative  and  that  give  a  charming  picture  of  the  man. 
fhe  work  of  the  editor  and  the  biographer  has  been  performed  with  thorough  good 
taste  and  dignity  .  .  .  and  the  book  takes  its  place  among  standard  biographies  of 
men  worthy  to  be  gratefully  remembered. — Christian  Register. 


A  Prisoner  of  War  in  Virginia 

(1864-5) 

Cr.     8°.     With  5  Illustrations.     $1.00  net.     By  mail,  $1.10 


A  volume  that  will  long  survive  with  other  notable  records  of  personal  experience 
in  the  Civil  War.  The  historian  of  the  next,  or  even  of  some  later  century,  would 
find  this  an  indispensable  source-book.  .  .  .  There  are  details  in  Mr.  Putnam's 
modest  narrative  that  recall  nothing  more  vividly  than  certain  parts  of  the  famous 
seventh  chapter  of  the  "  History  of  the  Peloponnesian  War.  " — Literary  Digest. 


It  is  rarely  that  the  House  of  Putnam,  which  has  a  peculiarly  wide  and  varied 
output,  has  given  to  the  public  so  interesting  a  book.  The  experience  described 
was  extremely  unusual ;  there  are  now  living  few  men  who  passed  through  one  like  it, 
and  possibly  none  who  could  recount  it  in  so  satisfying  a  manner.  .  .  .  The  nar- 
rative betrays  no  faintest  trace  of  vindictive  feeling  or  even  of  resentment  that  would 
be  almost  inevitable.  One  gets  the  impression  that  this  is  due  not  to  the  softening 
influence  of  the  years,  but  rather  to  the  innate  fairness  and  kindliness  of  the  author 
.  .  .  It  is  well  for  the  great  mass  of  our  people,  to  whom  the  war  for  the  Union  is 
but  a  matter  of  written  history,  to  realize,  so  far  as  a  tale  like  this  can  make  them 
realize,  that  but  for  the  service  of  men  like  Major  Putnam  there  would  have  been 
no  country  such  as  ours  now  is  in  which  to  live  in  peace  and  security. — EDWARD 
GARY,  New  York  Times. 


Major  Putnam  has  rendered  a  genuine  service  in  recounting  in  this  clear,  straight- 
forward, unvarnished  narrative,  his  own  experiences  in  Libby  and  in  Danville  prisons. 
.  .  A  narrative  such  as  this,  written  by  a  man  of  the  Major's  literary  power  and 
high  standing,  after  all  feeling  of  personal  resentment  is  at  an  end,  becomes  at  once 
authoritative  and  unimpeachable. — N.  Y.  Evening  Post. 


Major  Putnam  has  lived  more  lives  than  one.  ...  Asa  young  officer  in  his  teens, 
his  gallantry  got  him  into  trouble  and  landed  him  in  Libby  prison.  His  endurance, 
will  power,  and  sagacity  carried  him  through  murderous  hardships,  which  are  hard 
for  us  of  a  later  generation  to  appreciate.  His  intellectual  activities  since  the  great 
war  have  made  his  name  known  wherever  books  are  read.  He  has  helped  to  make 
history  and  to  tell  it.  In  both  he  has  shown  the  indispensable  traits  of  a  hero ; 
modesty  and  temperate  statement.  His  style  is  as  clear  as  his  deeds  were  brave. 
.  .  .  There  is  something  in  this  narrative  so  manly,  straightforward,  fair,  and  reason- 
able that  a  stranger  reading  it  would  on  occasion  vote  him  into  his  pet  club  without 
"  looking  him  up.  "  The  Major  puts  his  touches  of  humor  always  in  the  right 
place.  In  other  words,  he  is  logical,  tactful,  and  human. — DR.  R.  H.  BELL  in  the 
American  Practitioner. 


Abraham   Lincoln 

The  People's  Leader  in  the  Struggle  for  National  Existence 

With  the  above  is  included  the  speech  delivered  by  Lincoln  in 
New  York,  February  27,  1860;  with  an  introduction  by  Charles  C. 
Nott,  late  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court  of  Claims,  and  annotations  by 
Judge  Nott  and  by  Cephas  Brainerd,  of  the  New  York  Bar. 

With  frontispiece  reproduced  in  photogravure  from  the  portrait 
by  Marshall. 

Crown  8°.     $1.25  net.     By  mail,  $1.40 

I  shall  preserve  this  volume  as  one  of  the  most  treasured  of  those  relating  to  my 
father.  .  .  .  Your  narrative  is  full  of  interest  and  of  freshness  and  I  have  read 
it  throughout  with  the  greatest  pleasure. — ROBERT  LINCOLN. 


I  have  read  with  much  interest  your  account  of  the  life  of  Lincoln  and  of  the  issues 
in  which  Lincoln  was  leader.  I  congratulate  you  upon  your  ability  to  handle  the 
pen  as  effectively  as  the  sword. — JOHN  BIGELOW. 


This  volume  has  qualities  of  its  own,  which  make  it  stand  out  among  the  many 
books  that  have  been  called  forth  by  the  Lincoln  Centenary.  The  author's  recol- 
lections go  back  to  the  critical  time  that  preceded  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War. 
.  .  .  Now,  when  nearly  half  a  century  has  passed,  Mr.  Putnam  states  with  admirable 
clearness,  his  estimate  of  the  great  President  and  of  his  policy.  .  .  .  The  personal 
reminiscences  of  the  author  constitute  a  special  interest  for  the  book.  It  is  impos- 
sible, even  after  all  these  years,  to  read  with  dry  eyes  the  story  of  the  ten  thousand 
veterans  who  were  sobbing  together  on  receiving  the  news  of  the  death  of  the  great 
Captain. — London  Spectator. 


George  H.  Putnam  is  one  of  the  few  publishers  who  is  nearly  as  well  known  as 
an  author.  ...  As  his  previous  books  have  shown,  he  knows  how  to  write  with 
vigor  and  effect.  .  .  .  This  book  has  a  special  interest  in  presenting  personal 
experiences  of  the  War  and  possesses  also  a  unique  value  in  presenting  the 
revised  text  of  Lincoln's  famous  Cooper  Union  Address  with  an  introduction  and 
notes  on  the  constitutional  issues  of  the  War.  Mr.  Putnam* .5  vivid  and  vigorous 
appreciation  of  the  great  Leader  and  his  clearly  presented  narrative  of  the  events 
of  the  time  make,  with  the  record  of  this  great  speech,  a  volume  of  exceptional  value 
and  interest. — London  Bookseller. 


The  Censorship  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
and  Its  Influence  upon  the  Produc- 
tion and  the  Distribution  of 
Literature 

A   Study   of    the   History   of   the   Prohibitory    and    Expurgatory 

Indexes,  together  with  some  Consideration  of  the  Effects  of 

Protestant  Censorship  and  of  Censorship  by  the  State 

Two  volumes.     6°.     Uniform  with  "Books  and  Their  Makers." 
Per  Volume,  net,  $2.50 

This  treatise  presents  a  schedule  of  the  Indexes  issued  by  the  Church,  together 
with  a  list  of  the  more  important  of  the  decrees,  edicts,  prohibitions,  and  briefs 
having  to  do  with  the  prohibition  of  specific  books,  from  the  time  of  Gelasius  I., 
567  A.D.,  to  the  issue  in  1900  of  the  latest  Index  of  the  Church  under  Leo  XIII.  The 
author  has  had  an  opportunity  of  making  a  personal  examination  of  the  larger  number 
of  the  Indexes  which  are  described  in  his  schedule,  and  he  presents,  under  the 
descriptive  titles  of  the  more  important  of  these  Indexes,  a  specification  of  the  special 
character  of  the  constitution  and  regulations  contained  in  each,  and  a  selection  of 
titles  of  the  more  important  of  the  books  condemned.  He  has  attempted  to  indicate 
the  influence  exerted  by  the  Censorship  of  the  Church  on  the  undertakings  of  authors, 
professors,  publishers,  and  booksellers  in  each  one  of  the  European  States  in  which 
the  regulations  of  the  Index  came  into  force.  In  the  final  chapter  is  presented  a 
summary  of  the  conclusions  reached  by  certain  representative  Catholics  of  to-day 
in  regard  to  the  present  literary  policy  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

Dr.  Putnam  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  men  in  America.  He  was  a  soldier  in 
the  Civil  War.  He  has  been  a  leading  publisher  for  more  than  a  generation.  To 
him  more  than  any  other  man  is  due  the  measure  of  American  copyright  that  we  now 
enjoy.  The  marvel  is  that  with  all  his  business  and  public  work,  Dr.  Putnam  has 
found  time  to  make  himself  a  most  thorough  and  accurate  scholar.  The  present 
volume  treats  of  a  subject  that  is  largely  misunderstood,  and  that  is  of  first  importance 
in  the  history  of  literature  and  of  the  Church.  The  author  writes  in  an  entirely 
dispassionate  spirit. — London  Chronicle. 

In  this  treatise,  Dr.  Putnam  makes  adequate  recognition  of  the  enormous  diffi- 
culties under  which  the  authorities  of  the  Church  labored  in  carrying  on  their 
system  of  censorship.  .  .  .  The  author  is  not  in  the  least  bigoted  and  is  never 
unfair.  .  .  .  His  volumes  are  most  interesting  and  are  deserving  of  careful  study. 

Catholic  Times. 

Scholarship  exact  and  judicial  imparts  rare  distinction  to  the  work  by  George 
Haven  Putnam  on  the  Censorship  of  the  Church  of  Rome. — Philadelphia  Press. 


Books  and  Their  Makers  During  the 
Middle  Ages 

A  Study  of  the  Conditions  of  the  Production  and  Distribution  of 
Literature  from  the  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  to 
the  Close  of  the  Seventeenth  Century 

In  Two  Volumes,  5°.      (Sold  Separately.}      Each,  $2.50 

It  is  seldom  that  such  wide  learning,  such  historical  grasp  and  insight,  have  been 
employed  in  the  service  of  the  history  of  literary  production. — Atlantic  Monthly. 

For  all  persons  of  literary  tastes,  for  all  librarians  and  collectors,  for  all  authors 
and  publishers,  for  all  readers  who  would  like  to  follow  the  evolution  of  thought  into 
manuscript,  and  of  manuscripts  into  books,  and  of  books  into  literature,  and  of 
literature  into  a  profession  and  a  business,  the  work  will  have  an  irresistible  fascina- 
tion. The  amount  of  original  research  that  has  gone  into  it  is  simply  enormous,  and 
the  materials  have  been  most  thoroughly  assimilated  and  methodically  presented. 

Literary  World. 

Mr.  Putnam  has  given  the  book-loving  world  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
valuable  bibliographical  treatises  of  the  decade.  ...  It  is  a  noble  work,  and  its 
value  to  the  literary  knowledge  of  the  world  can  hardly  be  estimated  too  highly. 

N.  Y.  World. 


Authors  and  Their  Public  in  Ancient 

Times 

A  Sketch  of  Literary  Conditions  and  of  the  Relations   with   the 

Public  of  Literary  Producers,  from  the  Earliest  Times 

to  the  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire 

Second  Edition,  Revised,   12°,  Gilt  Top.     $1.50 

The  Knickerbocker  Press  appears  almost  at  its  best  in  the  delicately  simple  and 
yet  attractive  form  which  it  has  given  to  this  work,  wherein  the  chief  of  a  celebrated 
publishing  house  sketches  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  idea  of  literary  property.  .  .  . 
The  book  abounds  in  information,  is  written  in  a  delightfully  succinct  and  agreeable 
manner,  with  apt  comparisons  that  are  often  humorous,  and  with  scrupulous  exact- 
ness to  statement,  and  without  a  sign  of  partiality  either  from  an  author's  or  a 
publisher's  point  of  view. — New  York  Times. 

A  most  instructive  book  for  the  thoughtful  and  curious  reader.  .  .  .  The  author's 
account  of  the  literary  development  of  Greece  is  evidence  of  careful  investigation 
and  of  scholarly  judgment.  Mr.  Putnam  writes  in  a  way  to  instruct  a  scholar  and 
to  interest  the  general  reader. — Philadelphia  Press. 


The  Question  of  Copyright 

Comprising  the  Text  of  the  Copyright  Law  of  the  United  States, 
and  a  Summary  of  the  Copyright  Laws  in  Force  in  the  Chief 
Countries  of  the  World;  together  with  a  Sketch  of  the  Contest 
in  the  United  States,  1837-1891,  in  Behalf  of  International 
Copyright,  and  Certain  Papers  on  the  Development  of  the 
Conception  of  Literary  Property  and  on  the  Results  of  the 
American  Law  of  1891. 

Second  Edition,  Revised,  with  Additions,  and  with  the  Record  of  Legislation 
Brought  down  to  March,   1 896.     8°,  Gilt  Top,  $1.75 

A  perfect  arsenal  of  facts  and  arguments,  carefully  elaborated  and  very  effectively 
presented.  .  .  .  Altogether  it  constitutes  an  extremely  valuable  history  of  the 
development  of  a  very  intricate  right  of  property,  and  it  is  as  interesting  as  it  is 
valuable. — N.  Y.  Nation. 

A  work  of  exceptional  value  for  authors  and  booksellers,  and  for  all  interested  in 
the  history  and  status  of  literary  property. — Christian  Register. 

Until  the  new  Copyright  law  has  been  in  operation  for  some  time,  constant  re- 
course must  be  had  to  this  workmanlike  volume. — The  Critic. 


The   Little   Gingerbread   Man 

With  Pictures  and  Decorations  in  Color  by 

Robert  Gaston  Herbert 

CV.  8°.     $1.25.     By  mail,  $1.40 

Full  of  robust  fun,  of  wonder-compelling  adventure,  of  quaint  mishap,  of  lively 
incident,  it  presents  a  combination  of  elements  that  has  proved  irresistible  to  the 
juvenile  reader.  The  illustrations  are  just  what  will  delight  a  child's  fancy. 


The  Artificial  Mother 

A  Marital  Fantasy 

With  6  Illustrations  by  Van  Deusen.     12°.     75  cents 

This  dream  of  a  "  family  man "  is  illustrated  so  cleverly  that  the  pictures  alone 
would  make  the  book  popular.  The  illustrations  and  text  of  the  book  have  so  much 
genuine  humor  that  "no  family  can  afford  to  be  without  it,  "  as  they  say  of  the  baby 
jumper. — N.  Y.  Observer. 


Authors  and   Publishers 

A  MANUAL  OF  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  BEGINNERS  IN 
LITERATURE 

Comprising  a  Description  of  Publishing  Methods  and  Arrange, 
ments,  Directions  for  the  Preparation  of  Manuscript  for  the 
Press,  Explanations  of  the  Details  of  BooknManufacturing, 
Instructions  for  Proof -Read  ing,  Specimens  of  Typography, 
the  Text  of  the  United  States  Copyright  Law,  and  Informa. 
tion  Concerning  International  Copyrights,  together  with 
General  Hints  for  Authors. 

By  G.  H.  P.  and  J.  B.  P. 

Seventh  Edition,  Re-written  with  Additional  Material 
8°,  Gilt  Top,  net,  $1.75 

The  continued  interest  that  has  been  expressed  in  this  book  on  the  part  of  the 
general  public  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  it  presents  with  full  authority  and  in  the 
most  lucid  manner  information  of  practical  value,  and  that  it  would  be  difficult  to 
secure  elsewhere ;  while  the  element  of  dryness  which  so  frequently  characterizes 
manuals  of  information  is  here  wholly  eliminated.  .  .  .  The  volume  in  its  entirety 
is  so  practical,  so  clear,  and  so  punctilious  that  it  should  prove  most  enlightening 
and  helpful  to  the  authors  consulting  it. — Providence  Journal. 


